


The Black Nights, The Long Dark

by bvssbot



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), The Long Dark (Video Game)
Genre: Human AU, Human Upgraded Connor | RK900, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mystery, The Long Dark AU, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:57:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 36,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bvssbot/pseuds/bvssbot
Summary: translation ofтёмные ночи, долгая тьма (the dark nights, the long darkness)by rainesu into englishAn unknown catastrophe was the reason Gavin ended up stranded alone on a godforsaken Canadian island. Having almost made peace with the thought of living in solitude for the rest of his days, he saves the life of a pilot named Richard, whose airplane crashed in the middle of his humanitarian mission.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Тёмные ночи, долгая тьма](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/487402) by rainesu. 



> this is, frankly, my first time translating into english something that isn't school exercises from loooong ago. i liked the fic so much it killed me not to have the english speaking fandom -- where i'm mostly at -- know about this. it's an honor that i'm allowed to translate, and i feel both excited and afraid i somehow fuck this up out of inexperience lmfaooo  
> either way, i really hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoyed reading the original, and i hope i do it justice! i don't have a lot of free time these days, but i'll try not to take too long between updates  
> also, actually properly capitalizing shit? weird as fuck
> 
> nov '19 edit: on an indefinite hiatus lol

Suddenly, Gavin’s main problem became the question of lantern fuel instead of food. The first few weeks he thoughtlessly burned through the oil without a thought of trying to save any, just so he didn’t have to stay in the dark. The electricity turned off suddenly one day, seemingly without a reason, even though all the breaker panels appeared to be perfectly fine and functional upon checking. Regardless, the absence of electricity wasn’t the most pressing issue.

When the so-called Grand Fucking had happened — that was the conventional name for the climate catastrophe — Gavin was resting in one of the coastal tourist houses on this godforsaken Canadian island. The last inhabitants still remaining here got all their income from an occasional tourist and logging, and the lack of people around was exactly what Gavin had been looking for. Essentially, it was also what put him on the slippery slope right to his demise.

Having finished recounting the last of the preserved canned goods on the shelf, Gavin thoughtfully bit his lip. Based on his calculations, he had enough to last him two months — not taking into account any rabbits that might have gotten caught in one of the traps Gavin had set up a few days ago. When the realization hit that no one was looking for him (or, rather, that no one could _find_ him), Gavin desperately ate through all edible stock that he could find in the tourist housing around, only having the mind to ignore the dog food. If he wasn’t facing the possibility of dying from starvation, then the most pressing problem was the lack of fuel. Even if Gavin could count and measure out every drop, what he had would only last him a week.

Canadian nights were dark and long, so Gavin didn’t have that many options. Down the main road, there was a coastal settlement counting a dozen homes, a gas station and a general store. There, he could probably retrieve enough for at least a couple more months.

Packed into his backpack were only the necessities — food and water for exactly two days, matches and tinder for kindling, a few canteens, an old tourist map booklet with all sorts of marks drawn on it, an axe well on its way to full bluntness, a brand new hunter knife that he managed to scavenge from a gatehouse, and a crowbar just in case he had to break into the store. The rifle he had was a pleasant weight against his shoulder. Checking if it was loaded and just how many bullets he had left, Gavin let out a sigh. It was nothing to write home about.

Once he tried to craft a bow to hunt deer, but the wood Gavin used was too dry and too hard. The bow broke the second Gavin attempted to pull on the makeshift string, and the sharpened arrows he made weren’t good enough to pierce through thick pelts. Gavin had to give up the idea of hunting, instead using traps and saving up the bullets for an animal much more dangerous than some deer.

Cursing along the way, Gavin made a quick job of lacing up his boots and opened the backpack to throw in an additional couple of bandages, a bottle of antiseptic and a sewing kit — just in case he couldn’t scare away the wolves.

He threw some dirt on the still-lit fire inside the furnace, then hoisted the backpack up on his shoulders and looked around. In the few weeks he’s been here, he managed to get used to the tiny hut and felt sharp discomfort every time he had to leave the premise. Coming back to an uninvited guest was a rather unattractive possibility.

Funnily enough, once he was an uninvited guest himself.

Propping the door bolt, Gavin threw on the hood of his coat and shuddered. The sun was rising. There, on the dark sky above, a large blob of bright yellow light was slowly creeping up. Despite the lack of any wind, the frosty air immediately bit Gavin’s warm face. After overly loud and colorful Detroit, the ringing silence of the wilderness was the hardest to get used to. However, if he listened closely, he could still catch the noise of tree branches, the shrieks of birds and a warning howl of a wolf somewhere far away.

Gavin did divert from his intended trail to check on the traps. Only one of the three wasn’t empty. The frozen rabbit corpse made home against his backpack, tightly held by a noose for the time being. Gavin planned to skin it later, when he reached his first stop.

The road lay in front of him, as long as Canadian nights.


	2. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin sets away the long wooden spoon he was stirring the meat with and turns around. Richard is trying to sit up, looking the room over sleepily — his gaze catches the sight of Reed, who waves at him.
> 
> Too clingy. Too familiarly tenacious. An anxious feeling doesn’t let him feel at peace. Apparently, he never quite got rid of his paranoia.

Gavin was forced to stray off the path when he caught sight of a wolf ahead. The now present wind spread the inviting scent of dead rabbit, attracting the attention of everyone willing to have a bite. Local wolves knew the smell of gunpowder well enough and any kind of shooting had them afraid, but Gavin wasn’t planning on wasting the precious ammo yet.

He didn’t notice the running animal in time to successfully hide. The heavy sailor overcoat he looted in one of the buildings did a great job of warming him up, better than a padded jacket would, but it cost Gavin speed.

Back in Detroit he spent quite a large portion of his time training on the moving targets in DPD’s shooting range.

“Closer, closer…” he murmurs, barely audible, slowly raising his rifle. The sound of a shot is abashedly loud in the silence of a new dawn, scaring a flock of birds off where they were perched up on a spruce tree. The wolf only gets to let out a short, startled whine before it drops dead. Bullseye.

“Your own fault,” concludes Gavin, grabbing some rope out of his backpack. He masterfully throws one end over a branch of a nearby tree, tying the wolf’s legs together with the other and lifting the carcass way up in the air so no other predator gets to his kill before him.

Gavin tightly secures the dangling end of the rope around the trunk of the tree.

“Hang around for a bit, buddy,” Gavin marks the place by cutting the tree bark with his knife, just in case he makes his way back from the other side and doesn’t notice the hanging corpse. Mentally adding a few dozen pounds of meat to his preserves, Gavin, in the best set of mind, once again starts making his way down the slope.

In one and a half month of living in complete solitude in the middle of Canadian nothingness, Gavin learned to appreciate a bunch of small things he never had a second thought about back at home. Electric light, clear roads, food delivery, hot water that he didn’t have to manually heat in a giant pot just so he could clean himself.

That one and a half month taught him a lot of other things. Looking up at the sky painted bright orange by the sun, Gavin cursed inwardly and tried to count how many hours was left until the next blizzard.

After _The Grand Fucking_ had happened, the snow storms became especially unbearable. Sometimes they lasted a couple hours, sometimes — days, cutting Gavin off from the rest of the world in his tiny hunter’s hut by the edge of the forest. There was no way of telling how long one of those storms would last.

Turning in the direction of the railway, Gavin kept glancing to the north where the dark, heavy clouds were slithering closer along the sky. The steadily growing in strength wind wasn’t a good sign.

Gavin had forty minutes of walking until he reached the abandoned tourist base. There, he had a firewood and food supply in case of an impromptu stop. Like the one right now.

The sky couldn’t darken fast enough. Gavin had to speed up, but he knew the time was running short and he wouldn’t make it before the blizzard hit. Almost magically, the slow snowfall became a concrete wall of steadfast white.

There was no turning back. Gavin slowly made his way forward along the railway, covering his eyes and face from the merciless ice crumbs the soft snowflakes turned into. The whistling of the wind was deafening, warping any and every sound. For a moment Gavin even thought he heard someone shout, but he quickly wrote it off as a mean trick his imagination played on him. Not a soul was around this part of the island — or maybe Gavin just hadn’t been lucky enough to come across another human being. A living human being.

And then he heard the scream again. Again, and again.

Gavin desperately rushed forward, nothing but the distinct sound of another human on his mind.

The closer he got, the clearer became the figure of a man separated from Gavin by the waterfall of snow.

“Fucking hell,” Gavin snarled and, having collected as much air inside his lungs as he physically could, screamed: “Hold tight!”

The figure faltered and fell to its knees. The wind quieted down as suddenly as it had risen, but Gavin barely even noticed.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Gavin dashed to help the man up before he face planted into the snow under them. It wasn’t the first time Gavin came across someone like that — desperate in their attempt to travel as far as they could and frozen solid, successfully shielded from the weather but unlucky, too slow in making a fire.

“Hang in there, man, hang in there,” Gavin vigorously rubs the man’s pale face and hands in his own warm ones, checking for any signs of frostbite. Just then Gavin finally notices — lifts his head up and stares at the blood trail tainting the perfectly white snow.

The thick padded coat is ripped on the right side, soaked in crimson blood.

“Fuck! Don’t you dare die on me!” Gavin drops both the backpack and the rifle off his shoulders. Immune to submitting to stress, having worked in police for as long as he did, he quickly got his shit together and snatched the makeshift first aid kit out of the backpack, hastily treating the shallow wound and stitching the torn skin up. They didn’t have much time. The man was lucky enough the bite didn’t reach any important parts, but he would’ve died if it wasn’t tended to.

“Talk to me,” orders Gavin, hoisting his things on his back and helping the man stand up, forcing him to lean most of his weight on Gavin. “Tell me your name, age. The fuck you’re doing here in the first place. C’mon, man, we just gotta walk a bit…”

“Richard, thirty one,” the rescued martyr replies with a heavy tongue, holding onto Gavin for his dear life, so hard Gavin wouldn’t be able to fend him off even if he wanted to. “Plane crashed… I’m the only survivor.”

Gavin wonders what kind of idiot you must be to fly in this weather to the ass end of the world, and decides it must’ve been a private flight without a crew, sans the pilot. It was always like this — insane fools, adventurous enough to meet their own death.

“You a pilot?”

“I’m… Yes. I was delivering aid for the town.”

Richard was heavier and taller than himself, but Gavin stubbornly trudged them forward, praying for all the gods (or whatever was in charge of the weather) to let them reach the tourist base safe and sound.

“Fucking awesome. Didn’t hear about the local blizzards?”

“I did. Everyone did. I wanted to help. Food, medicine, heating fuel. It was just enough for those who didn’t evacuate, for the time being.”

“Why help morons who trapped themselves here?”

“Like yourself?”

Gavin didn’t reply. The Canadian flag flapping in the wind reared itself over the hill and allowed him to exhale with relief. Despite Gavin’s numerous concerns (the frozen lake usually was many wolves’ favorite hang out spot), they didn’t encounter anything or anyone on their path. Setting Richard down on the wooden terrace floor, Gavin started breaking off the planks he had secured the door with when he was here last.

The inside was the same as he left it. Only one of the windows was broken — undoubtedly the storm’s doing.

Richard made an attempt of standing up by himself and immediately slid to the floor with a hiss of pain, trying to cover the bandaged wound with his hand. Gavin rushed to help, getting him up and inside.

“Sit here,” he hoarsely commands, locking the door. “I’m gonna cover the window, heat up the oven, get you a mattress and some blankets from upstairs and then check on your wound again. Doing okay?”

“I feel like I was thrown into a grinder and then immediately dipped into icy water,” Richard wasn’t any less paler, but his voice came out firmer. “All in all, pretty shitty.”

Gavin snorted.

“Joking, huh? Sounds like you’re gonna be just fine. Hold on some more.”

 

Firewood crackled pleasantly under fire’s command, filling the room with warm orange light. The curtains were plugged into the gaps between planks Gavin hammered against the busted window. The two mattresses he threw down the stairs were on the floor now, one closer to the potbelly stove, for Richard who needed help lying down on it.

His wound looked… fine, normal. The skin around wasn’t red nor swollen, although not quite enough time had passed for an infection to let itself known. Gavin tended to the wry seam and applied a fresh bandage.

He managed to warm up already, but Richard’s skin was ice cold and sticky. In the short time Gavin was taking care of everything, Richard was mostly silent, listening to Gavin’s rumbling and occasionally granting him a curt reply to his questions. Even the few words were better than nothing though, better than one and a half month of isolation.

“I’ll have to rub you down,” briefed him Gavin, lifting his head up. Richard looked at him long and thoughtful and then nodded, willing his unwilling fingers to deal with the buttons of his shirt. The sight immediately gathered the majority of Gavin’s attention. Richard’s fingers were long, ended with accurate, neat nails — pretty. Gavin had to remind himself what he was about to do to distract himself.

One of the kitchen counters stored some whisky, placed there by Gavin himself who did grab it while looting the houses but never got around to drinking. He didn’t want to come back to where he’d started.

First on the agenda he rubbed Richard’s legs, unintentionally focusing on every detail he had no business paying attention to, yet still did.

Richard had big feet (size 10.5”, no smaller) and strong calves — probably from running. Or cycling. Or both. Under Gavin’s fingers were taut and hard muscles. Sixpack, hairless firm chest — all that, hiding under multiple layers of clothing.

At one point, Gavin caught himself, realizing he wasn’t so set on just rubbing the whisky into the cold skin. Starved of human contact, he simply wanted to touch.

Richard didn’t object. Looking up meekly, Gavin noticed Richard dozed off, now that his body finally started warming up. Quickly buttoning the shirt back up and rolling the pant legs down, Gavin covered the man in several layers of blankets and sat away from him.

 

In one and a half month, Gavin had mastered the act of skinning rabbits to almost a professional level. In some forty minutes, the meat was sizzling appetizingly as it stewed in beans from a can inside a deep pot as Gavin threw cut rosehip inside two mugs to make them both herbal tea.

It was a moment of peace and silence at last, allowing him to think carefully about the situation. If Richard was, in fact, a pilot on his way to deliver aid, it was Gavin’s golden ticket home. Plane meant electronics, and electronics meant parts for the ham radio he’d found in the hunter’s hut. Ideally, it would be smart to check Richard’s backpack for an ID to confirm his identity or weapons, but that… That could wait.

“Hmm…”

Gavin sets away the long wooden spoon he was stirring the meat with and turns around. Richard is trying to sit up, looking the room over sleepily — his gaze catches the sight of Reed, who waves at him.

Too clingy. Too familiarly tenacious. An anxious feeling doesn’t let him feel at peace. Apparently, he never quite got rid of his paranoia.

“You can nap for twenty more, if you wanna. Reed’s Special Stew will be done by then,” Gavin informs him, and Richard falls back onto the pillows. “I’d make you a stew but I don’t have shit for that.”

“Thank you.”

“What?”

“I never said thanks, uh..?”

“Gavin.”

“Gavin. Thank you for saving me.”

“Big deal.”

Gavin gets back to frenziedly stirring the meat so it doesn’t burn up. Richard’s gaze torched through him, felt so palpable, as if Richard wasn’t looking but touching. Touching the back of his head, neck, shoulders, his back and lower. The gaze paused there, to Gavin’s surprise.

The warmth he felt wasn’t from the oven.

“Are you here alone?”

“You don’t see anyone else, do you.”

“So you’re one of those morons who trapped themselves here?”

Gavin hums, tapping the spoon against the side of the pot. Richard didn’t sound like he was trying to offed him, it felt like a friendly jab. Gavin missed that sort of thing the most.

“Yeah. Came here on a vacation, lived on the other side of the lake. When the weather got all fucked up, everyone quickly evacuated while my house got covered with snow. No one tried to dig me out. Must’ve forgotten.”

“Damn. _Shit.”_

“That’s one word for it.”

“I’m sorry if I…”

“Don’t bother.”

Gavin gets out two deep bowls and wipes both of them with the bottom of his plaid button-up before filling to the brim with the stew. Sitting down next to Richard, he hands him his portion.

“We may not have any Michelin stars, but our menu’s hot and filling,” for some reason explains himself Reed, as if something better than a simple meal was expected from him. “Been long since you crashed, by the way? You sure no one else survived?”

“A week,” Richard, with zero shame, promptly stuffs himself with food. Gavin slowly lifts his eyebrows. “At some point all the engines failed at once and the plane started losing altitude. I tried to correct the course but no luck. Last I remember — a crash against something, and then I found myself at the bottom of a cliff. I slept in the old trailers until I decided to find at least somebody. Found a wolf while making my way down to the railway. Managed to fend it off with a knife, got it right in its neck, but it did a number on me too. The rest you’re aware of.”

“That’s fucked up,” thoughtfully concludes Gavin and puts away his bowl. He wanted a smoke so bad. Previous life’s addictions stayed with him. “So, you have no idea where the plane is, right?”

“It probably fell into the ravine. Why?”

“Nah. Nothing,” Gavin shakes his head and gets up, grabbing their now empty bowls. “I’ll get you tea. Treat yourself to some and go back to sleep. We aren’t going anywhere with you like that. And with the weather, too…”

Gavin glances out the window. The wind howled, banging against the roof. The old building made some pretty unsettling sounds, as if it was about to fall apart any second, even though in those two weeks Gavin had spent here, it lived through tougher storms.

“Gavin. What do you need my plane for?”

Reed freezes, two metal mugs in his hands. Richard looks at him stoically, and there’s nowhere to hide from that gaze, nor the question. Sighing, Gavin hands him his mug and sits on the chair nearby.

“When you told me you’re a pilot, I hoped we could fix the ham radio in Jer— in my house and signal SOS, but with your plane in the ravine, there’s no chance of getting out of this pickle.”

Gavin shudders when he feels a hand on his knee. The touch sends tiny shivers all over his body, makes Gavin wonder where this is going.

“We will find a way. There’s two of us now and our chances of survival are doubled. Do you believe me, Gavin?”

Gavin bites his lip and, after a short pause, gives a terse nod.

He’s out of options, anyhow.


	3. Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kiss me,” Richard’s eyes are clear for once — clearer than Gavin has ever seen them. It wasn’t a request. “If I’m just seeing things, Gavin, and I still haven’t found you, at least kiss me right now.”

Gavin was awoken by a quiet moan.

The snowstorm outside hand only grown in strength overnight — the wind howled louder and banged against the windows, made the old wooden shutters creak and cry. At times like these, Gavin was torn — on one hand, he felt afraid of ruthless deadly weather, but on the other, it brought him an almost serene feeling of comforting safety. All he wanted to do was bury himself deeper under the sheets until he fell back asleep.

But then he heard the moan again, and his whole being woke up at once.

Richard was tossing around on his improvised bed, talking to somebody from his dreams. In the dim lighting of the lit oven, his skin was a shade of a sickly white. Gavin awkwardly left his own bed, shook himself and carefully, not to wake up, made his way over to Richard. His forehead was cold and sticky under Gavin’s dry warm palm. The touch all of a sudden brought Richard peace. He muttered something unintelligible and calmed down.

Gavin stayed sitting there for a few minutes, palm covering Richard’s forehead until his breathing evened out. Gavin should probably check up on his wound, whether it was infected or not. He hesitantly decided to wait until Richard was conscious.

Reed’s body refused to fall back asleep. Gavin kept tossing, turning to lie on his right side and then left again, desperately trying to relax. He had gotten so used to being alone that now every second was spent anxiously listening to Richard’s breathing, waiting for the moment he couldn’t hear it any more.

He spent a whole hour like that before finally getting up. He tiredly rubbed the prickly stubble marring his jaw. The old shaving kit he left at home, but he wouldn’t have minded having it with him now.

First he threw a couple of fresh logs into the oven and put a pot full of water on the stove above. Richard was sleeping better now, oblivious to Gavin’s ministrations even when he almost stumbled over Richard’s long legs on his way to the oven.

The storm outside started calming down, but the snowfall did not. Gavin glanced outside, trying to make out the fishermen’s huts. No dice. A hundred yards was the maximum viewing distance, the rest hidden away in the mist.

That was shitty. They needed food. Way more than what Gavin had with him.

He massaged his stiff neck and sighed. Richard was probably right that they had a better chance of surviving than before, now that there was two of them, but the anxious anticipation of an unidentifiable danger refused to disappear no matter how trustworthy Richard seemed to be.

He feels Richard’s gaze on him again, but doesn’t hurry to turn around. That gaze — just like yesterday — is too heavy, too tangible. It slid across the plane of his back, around the shoulder blades visible from underneath Gavin’s thin cotton t-shirt. Gavin wanted to turn around and stay still at the same time, just to let Richard thoroughly enjoy the sight.

Fists clenched, he stared out of the window, allowing Richard to study him.

And Richard did. Gavin felt his gaze everywhere, on every patch of skin not covered by clothes. With his eyes only, Richard was counting the scars on Gavin’s arms, appreciated the width of his shoulders, his muscles.

Gavin’s face was positively burning up. He didn’t blush easily, but it sure felt like his cheeks were bright red. One and a half month of solitude was probably to blame — the only logical explanation of his reaction.

“Good morning,” Richard’s voice was hoarse from sleep. Gavin faked a surprised shudder best he could.

“You’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Been better, but I can handle it.”

“So where _does_ it hurt?”

“I just feel spent. Headache and nausea.”

Gavin slapped a hand across his forehead. He did stitch the wound, but he’s completely forgotten about the consequences of blood loss. In Detroit, recurrent blood donation campaigns were a good way of getting an official day off work. After participating as a donor, you were treated to a bunch of free snacks to restore your hemoglobin levels.

Richard needed to eat something sweet.

“Don’t be afraid to ask me for anything, ok?” Gavin searches for his backpack. He had a few chocolate nut bars inside that, judging by their impressive composition, could probably survive a nuclear winter. The most important part was that they had sugar in them.

“Mmh, alright.”

Richard didn’t look impressed, but wordlessly ripped the packaging up as soon as Gavin handed him a bar.

“What’s up?” Gavin took the boiling water off the stove and relocated it to the table, putting the pot with leftover food in its place. “You don’t look that happy to spend the rest of your fucking life living like a savage. Ain’t that a dream, huh?”

“Maybe, but not for me,” Richard snorted, licking the melted chocolate off his fingers. “I just dislike being so helpless.”

“Well, at least you’re free to order me around ‘til you get better. A rather unique opportunity, I’m telling you,” Gavin poured some instant coffee into his mug, filling it with a mix of boiled water and a generous amount of condensed milk. He made more rosehip tea for Richard.

“Mmh, yeah? I’ll make sure to remember.”

Gavin felt like he got tased by the tone of Richard’s voice alone. He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, saw the smirk on his face and immediately turned to the stove, swallowing the lump in his throat. Was he flirting? He was flirting for sure, otherwise it was Gavin’s sick, dirty imagination that had him hearing a double meaning behind the most innocent of words.

“So what will be your first wish?” Gavin joked, filling their bowls with the stew. Heart stuck somewhere in his throat, Reed was trying his best to look deadpan.

“Let me think…”

Gavin froze for a moment and seemingly stopped breathing, awaiting the answer.

“Tell me about yourself.”

“Oh,” Gavin’s lips stretched in a smile. “I’m my favorite topic.”

He sat across Richard on his own mattress and placed the bowls right there, on the floor between them, not bothering to serve it prettily. It was just a simple breakfast.

“I’m not from here, born and raised… in Detroit, state of –”

“I know where Detroit is. I’m from there.”

“For real?” Gavin almost choked on the beans and started incredulously at the man. Richard shrugged, apparently not at all surprised by the fact.

“Such coincidences happen much more often than you imagine,” he smirked, scraping the spoon against the edge of his bowl as if he couldn’t get enough of Gavin’s simple cookery.

“Bullshit,” Gavin mutters, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you’re from Detroit. The hell you’re doing here then?”

“We’re talking about you,” Richard’s words almost came off as commanding, and Gavin lifted a brow but didn’t question it.

“Okay,” he mirrored his companion’s shrug. “What do you wanna know?”

“Where do you work?”

“Detroit Police Department. Detective Gavin Reed, a pleasure to meet you,” Gavin did a silly courtesy. It was Richard’s turn to be surprised.

“Detective Reed, then,” he hummed, tongue slow around the syllables as if he was trying to taste them. Gavin liked the way he said it. He wouldn’t mind hearing it… sometime after. “Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“You didn’t lose your shit in front of a injured person, can perform first aid, and also your eyes.”

“My eyes?”

“The way you look at me feels like you know every little thing about me, starting from how I used to smoke weed in high school and ending with the parking violation from two months ago.”

Gavin laughed, catching the sight of Richard’s sly smile.

“So, weed?”

“I thought it was cool. Turned out it wasn’t.”

“Your sin’s past its expiration date, buddy. You can confess your smallest shortcomings to me.”

“Do you moonlight as a priest?”

“Sorta, yeah.”

Richard smiled at him and Gavin couldn’t contain his own grin. The tension of being around a stranger slowly dissipated the more they talked. All of a sudden, things didn’t seem as shitty.

It was fairly easy to find common language with Richard. Way easier than with anybody before, if Gavin was honest with himself.

“You need to sleep,” Gavin got up, getting Richard’s empty bowl from him.

“What about my indulgence, Father?”

“You’ll have time to confess once you’re better,” Gavin grinned. “Lemme look at your wound first.”

Richard wordlessly starts to unbutton his shirt, and a for half a second Gavin’s lungs take a break because of how borderline improper the action appears.

“Okay…” Gavin unwraps the bandages and frowns, biting down on his lip. The crooked seam is inflamed and swollen at the edges. Bad sign. “I’m gonna take care of this and bind you back up. If you don’t feel better by evening, I’ll have to go get some medicine from the abandoned medical center. It’s way closer than home.”

Gavin says _home_ unintentionally and bites his tongue. The house he lived in was Jeremiah’s — old hunter’s, fallen by the claw of a bear. Gavin found his corpse in the forest, as well as his map, keys and rifle. Jeremiah’s house was better insulated than the old tourist base, didn’t require that much fuel to heat it and, most importantly, stored quite a big provision stock. Unfortunately, Gavin never got to bury the old hunter — his corpse was ripped apart by wild animals by the time Gavin came back.

Richard doesn’t pay the wording that throws off Reed himself any mind and frowns a bit, closely watching Gavin’s face.

“You sound like you don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

“Well, I’d rather not go there, but…” vaguely replies Gavin, gripping the metal mug with his hands. “Doesn’t matter. I can’t leave you here to die, can I?”

“I’d like to think not. But seriously, Gavin, what’s the problem?”

Gavin shyly rubs his neck and sighs after a pause.

“You get that wolves isn’t the biggest threat here. It’s way scarier to come across a bear. Bullets won’t help, you can’t run from it either. I went outside once to set up rabbit traps, but went off my usual trail deeper into the forest. The weather was great that day — it wasn’t that cold, the sun felt nice and warm for once. For a moment, I thought the anomalic frost went away, but… Anyway, I went off the trail and was busy setting up the traps when I felt someone’s gaze on me. The bear was looking at me from up the hill, and I swear to fucking God, it was staring right into my soul,” Gavin exhaled loudly. Richard was listening to him like spellbound, never looking away. “It was so close to me. So close, that I couldn’t even count to ten before it got me if it decided to attack. I started sneaking back best I could, crouching all the way until it turned into a dot in the distance. Only then I ran. I was shaking so hard I couldn’t hold the damn rifle properly for two whole days after that. My hands just couldn’t stop trembling. Only way later I studied Jeremiah’s old map again and found a mark meaning that there was a bear trail nearby. There’s the same mark near the old clinic, so… I never went there, but if you start getting worse, I won’t have a choice.”

Richard nodded like he understood and carefully lay back onto the pillows. Gavin noticed how hard it was for him to keep his face straight and not show what he was truly feeling. Not that there was any point in hiding emotions, but Reed knew that fear to seem weak perfectly well.

“You can just not go there. Go back home, even if it takes longer. Risk should be justified — if a bear rips you to shreds, I’ll die here by myself, suffering.”

“Maybe I won’t have to make that choice in the first place,” Gavin gave him a crooked smile.

“Maybe,” echoed Richard before closing his eyes.

“Sleep,” said Gavin and got up, taking their mugs. “No fuckin’ dying on me.”

“Is that an order?” Richard sounded sleepy already. Gavin smiled.

“Something like that. I’ll wake you up when it’s time to eat.”

***

Richard slept through most of the day. Gavin managed to wash the dishes and went outside to grab some snow to melt. The storm from the night before calmed down, but a thick mist appeared in its place — so heavy, anything farther ten feet away was impossible to make out.

Their dinner was way more modest — tomato soup plus chocolate for Richard. Gavin changed his bandages again. The wound had inflamed even more. Looking at it, Reed blamed himself that he was too reckless and didn’t disinfect the needle before stitching. He hadn’t told Richard about it, having determined that Richard would probably try to reassure him. Or give him enough arguments in his own favor until Gavin’s guilt drowned under them. It would still come back once he was alone with his thoughts, however.

By the time evening fell, things became worse for wear. Gavin heard the pained moan again — Richard was tossing around in his bed, blanket thrown to the side. Gavin didn’t have to look closely to see that he had a fever. He exhaled audibly when he touched the damp forehead.

“Shit,” he whispered. “I’ll rub you down again, alright?”

Richard barely opened his eyes, looking up at Gavin with an unfocused foggy gaze. Gavin didn’t wait for him to agree. He unbuttoned the soaked shirt and struggled to get the jeans down Richard’s legs. There was barely any whisky left — Gavin wasn’t skimping on it the last time.

“Drink,” he brought some warm boiled water to Richard’s lips. He drank greedily and fell onto the pillows after downing a couple more cups, eyes closed.

Reed covered him with several blankets and froze, unsure what to do. Helplessly looking around for a hint of some sort, he made his way upstairs and brought down a few more comforters. His mother always told him that the best way to get rid of all the shit in your body was to properly sweat it out. Gavin didn’t exactly believe it was as magical as his mother made it out to be, but it was the only option left.

In reality, he had made the decision back when he was telling Richard about the plan. There was no way in hell Gavin would let the only other alive human being around die.

His life in Detroit seemed to be from so long ago. It seemed so alien. All of Gavin’s problems in his past life were tiny: who to fuck, how to make it so his vacation falls on the best time of year for travel, how to get that sweet promotion. How not to lose his mind from his existence being reduced to home-work-home.

Now, he had a legit chance of doing something meaningful for the first time in his life.

Gavin was at Richard’s side all night. He changed the bandages several times, tended to the wound. He had enough knowledge about medical help to carefully clean it from the pus. Richard woke up only to drink water and urinate. His temperature stopped rising, and Gavin allowed himself a short nap before his trip. He slept poorly, but felt strangely vigorous upon waking.

He threw some logs into the fire to make it bigger and prepared enough warm water for Richard to drink. He put away the rest of their food into a safe place and emptied out his backpack to get rid of anything that could slow him down.

The medical center wasn’t that far away from the administration building, if he walked straight across the frozen lake. Then, he had to turn left and go along a snowy path. Two hours there, two back, one more to ransack the building for everything useful. Gavin didn’t make any plan b’s in case of a storm or a wolf encounter. Luck must be on his side at least once, at least for this.

“You’re going to the clinic.”

Startled, Gavin almost dropped his backpack. It wasn’t a question.

“You need a spear.”

“A spear.”

“People used to hunt bear with spears. Made its tip cruciform, stuck into the ground in front of the bear when it got up on two legs. It fell on the spear by itself. The cruciform tip stopped the body from sliding…”

“I’m not hunting a bear. It’s all a dream. You’re just seeing shit because of fever. Don’t forget to tell me about this when you wake up in the morning.”

Richard’s gaze was unfocused — gaze of a man who wasn’t fully in his mind. Something inside Gavin felt squeezed tight — to the point of irrational fear, he didn’t want to leave Richard alone. He could risk it and hope that his body would fix itself.

But Richard was right about one thing: any risk should be justified.

Gavin zips up his backpack and crouches to hand the man water. Richard drinks it up to the last drop, and after turns his head to look Gavin over from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, licking his dry, chapped lips.

“If I am having fever hallucinations, then you’re going to kiss me now.”

“What?”

“Kiss me,” Richard’s eyes are clear for once — clearer than Gavin has ever seen them. It wasn’t a request. “If I’m just seeing things, Gavin, and I still haven’t found you, at least kiss me right now.”

Gavin freezes in place, feeling his heartbeat pick up. His throat feels dry, and any coherent thought has left his head. Richard wasn’t being himself — why else would he be talking about looking for him, or wanting a kiss from him, or…

“I want a kiss, Gavin. I need…”

It was a sincere plead. Gavin didn’t move for a long moment, but then, stoically ignoring the race his heart was going through, leaned down and touched Richard’s lips with his own. Richard moved timidly, kissing him back, but once the tip of his tongue touched Reed’s lower lip, Gavin leaned away before the kiss could deepen.

“Just a kiss,” he said, for some reason. “We didn’t agree on anything more.”

“Okay,” Richard tiredly shut his eyes as Gavin rose up on hind legs. He walked to the door as his heart beat against the rib cage so hard you’d think it wanted out. His hearing way impaired by the rush of blood in his ears.

“Be careful,” Richard told his back.

“I’ll be back,” he replied, shutting the door behind him.

Luck was on his side now.


	4. Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright. Don’t lie to me again, Richard.”
> 
> “Never,” whispers Richard right in his ear. Gavin can’t hide the shiver his breath sends down his spine. He knows Richard can feel it. He cannot not feel it.

The sound of snow crunching underneath his boots was loud. Gavin audibly inhaled the icy morning air with his nose, face burning up. He needed to focus on what was important — getting back alive, but all he could think of at that moment was Richard.

Richard must’ve mistaken him for somebody else in his fever dream, and Gavin just rudely took advantage of him — it was the only possible explanation his anxious mind could come up with. The thought did nothing to calm him down, and Gavin couldn’t not think of the kiss.

“Come on, Gavin,” he chastised himself with hoarse voice and tried to physically shake off the useless — for now — thoughts.

The fog settled, no longer hiding the frozen lake and a handful of fishermen’s huts that Gavin had looted a long time ago. Further, there were barely visible tourist cabins.

No wolf nor deer was in sight. Maybe it was for the better.

Gavin stepped on the ice. The grips on the soles of his boots came in handy every time he had to run across the lake to the nearest shelter. Gavin could almost say he was feeling good as he walked forward, circling around the huts.

He had a purpose for once.

When Gavin became a police officer, he, like all the policemen, swore to serve and protect. The romantic vision he had of the job quickly got tarnished by the daily hustle and a bunch of de facto/de jure rules he had to follow. Beating up a bastard suspected of rape until nosebleed to get a confession out of him — not allowed. Forgetting to yak about rights-silence-attorney rendered an entire interrogation invalid. Jailing an alcoholic-part-time-drug-dealer for domestic violence had his wife spit you in the face, because now she’s left alone with three kids. Having a working family of Mexicans whose Visa got expired departed, on the other hand, got you a bonus. Good job, Gavin, just don’t forget to submit all the twenty page long reports you have before the end of your shift, okay?

Saving kittens off trees, he received more gratitude than for his daily work.

An endless cycle of nearly identical calls about fights, drug dealing and suspicious teens was sprinkled with a special, _gourmet_ sort of shit, one that left him with an overwhelming urge to disinfect his entire body and soul. He could never forget those who were helpless, who didn’t care how many years they got for their crime because they had no means of getting back what was lost anyway — he could never forget the look in their eyes.

You wouldn’t work in the field if you didn’t give a fuck. Those who didn’t prefered to aim higher — directors board, FBI, or lower — the archives, where you could isolate yourself from the reality, where you saw the names but never the faces.

The rest were just breaking apart. Some too fast, some took their time. The first ones left, the others tried to get used to being broken, often finding solace at the bottom of the bottle or in something stronger. Or all at once.

Gavin kicked a pebble with anger that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

It was cold. His cheeks were like on fire out on the icy air, and Gavin pulled his thick wool scarf up higher. He’d give anything for a balaclava or a ski mask. He couldn’t have his hood up — once it almost cost him his life not to hear a wolf’s steps nearby. His fast reaction and shooting experience was what saved him then.

He sighed when he stepped on solid ground. The cabins looked exactly as he left them. No traces — not a wolf’s, not a man’s. Either way, the chance of coming across another survivor was miserable.

His own trail was perfectly identifiable on the virgin clean snow. If he left it as it were, wolves could easily track him down if they didn’t find an easier target. Gavin turned around and fished a bottle of ground pepper out of his pocket.

When he was a teen, he was really into books about survival in the wilderness, watched a bunch of Youtube videos and often went hiking himself. His father, when he was still alive, used to sometimes tell him stories about how to confuse dogs that were following you.

He sprinkled some pepper on where he was standing a second ago and quickly wiped the soles of his boots against moss growing on a tree to get rid of the scent. Only then he continued moving forward. It wouldn’t provide one hundred percent protection, but it was like balm on his soul. Not for long — the closer he got to the clinic, the more anxious he started to get.

Judging by Jeremiah’s maps, the bear trail wasn’t going across the building itself, but dangerously close to it. To Gavin’s disappointment, the old hunter forgoed pointing the direction of the trail.

He had only a hundred yards to go, but Gavin didn’t dare run. He forced himself to stop thinking and kept walking forward. The door turned out to be open — people here, too, must’ve left in a hurry. Better for Gavin, because it meant he’ll find more supplies inside.

Gavin opened the door and shut it from the inside, propping a chair against just in case. Not that he’s heard about bears breaking in, but better safe than sorry.

Gavin looted everything in the vicinity, choosing to go for the medicine first and grabbing all he could find. People here surely weren’t preparing for the end of the world, but Gavin was lucky to discover everything necessary for a simple surgery out in the field. There were antibiotics too — and pretty strong at that.

Done with the medicine, Gavin walked around the inside, opening every single drawer in his wake. The clinic was of two rooms — the reception and the living, the latter housing a bed, a desk, a wardrobe, an oven, a fridge and a few kitchen cabinets. A humble door led into a tiny bathroom.

He fed the backpack some fuel, matches, a grindstone and some random spices, but most importantly — ten units of canned food. There were even sardines. It’s been a while since Gavin last ate fish, and it almost seemed a luxury now. A few chocolate bars and a can of instant coffee were also rather nice finds.

For some reason he checked all the tech around too, but neither the computer nor the landline phone seemed to be working. He looked over the room and his gaze paused at a bright red box screwed to the wall, with a distress pistol inside.

Once, Gavin used the same type to scare off a wolf. Without a second thought, he elbowed the glass and carefully, not to cut himself, reached for the gun. He held it thoughtfully on the palm of his hand for a second and then hid inside the coat. It’ll come in handy. Any weapon will.

The wardrobe stored a padded jacket. Not the freshest, but way better than what was left of Richard’s after his encounter with the wolf.

The biggest treasure was waiting for him in one of the jacket’s pockets — an unopened pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“Holy fuck,” exhaled Gavin, feeling his hands shake. All those stories about how abstention was the best cure for an addiction were horseshit. You wouldn’t smoke if you didn’t want to smoke. And vice versa.

And Gavin wanted to. He really wanted to.

He slowly ripped the plastic surrounding the pack and took a cigarette out, putting it between his lips. The familiar bitter taste calmed him down. At least something in this brand new world stayed the same.

Gavin smoked, enjoying each second. Smoke filled his lungs, clearing his head and letting him relax for a while. It made all the tension disappear from his body, and Reed threw his head back, thoughtlessly staring at the dark wooden ceiling.

His hand automatically reached for another cigarette but Gavin stopped himself. It was time to go back. He can heal Richard now, and then… What happens then he doesn’t know — there was no rush to get lantern fuel now. With Richard’s appearance in his life, everything seemed to start changing, and Gavin no longer felt like he made peace with the thought of letting things be as they are. He wanted to move forward now, by himself, without fate pushing him on the back in its own direction of choosing.

It wasn’t entirely impossible that Richard could know another way of getting out of here. Or that he’s waiting for someone to come rescue him, unlike Gavin. No one searched for Gavin because it was his own intention — he took a two-week long vacation and left without telling anyone where to.

Did he regret it? Maybe.

Regret won’t magically rewind time, though. Gavin felt like he was meant to end up like this — found by nobody, all by himself, with his own past being the only company. Fate, however, decided against that, and now Gavin didn’t have time for regret.

His backpack was noticeably heavier. Gavin hoisted it up and tried walking around the house. If he had to run, it would only handicap him. He had a choice to make: what to leave out to lessen the weight.

The pack of cigarettes didn’t weight shit. They badly needed the food. As well as medicine. The jacket would prevent Richard from freezing on their way back to Gavin’s hut.

He had to sacrifice the fuel canister. If Gavin’s calculations were right, they could stretch it for two whole weeks. Well. He _did_ need to leave something behind.

The weight on his shoulders got cut almost in half.

Gavin moved the chair away and checked outside. The weather was wonderful: the sun felt warm on his skin, the snow fell to the ground in large flakes. Some days, it was really calm on the island. No bears, no storms, no injured pilots on his path.

Grabbing onto the straps of his backpack, Gavin shut the door and glanced around. He didn’t notice any footprints except his own. He didn’t hear any howling from far away, no growling (sometimes wolves from competing packs fought for their food), just the rustle of tree branches.

Gavin audibly exhaled and took a step forward. And then another, and another, and another.

He couldn’t believe his eyes when the familiar sight of the administration building greeted him. He felt like a power above saved him from all the danger today. But the closer he got to the base, the clearer became a curled up figure on the front porch.

Heart rate picking up, his own pulse is like a beat of drums in his ears. Gavin rushes forward, uncaring of any precaution, and almost falls when he stumbles on one of the rocks hidden by snow. If it’s Richard, if he went out for something, if someone found him and tried to hurt him, if…

There’s blood on the snow. A lot of blood. A long trail, leading from the railway to the base. Gavin’s hands shake as if it’s his first time seeing a corpse. Different clothes. Not the ones Richard wore. It isn’t Richard. Gavin just realizes.

Gavin falls to his knees and turns the poor guy around, wordlessly looking over the stranger’s face. He decided to follow Richard’s path, but wasn’t lucky enough to come across help and lost his life one step away from salvation.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, buddy,” speaks Gavin, knowing that now he will never get a reply from him, and then closes the stranger’s frozen glassy eyes with his palm. He needs to check up on Richard and then take care of the body. Burying him, even if only under the snow, is the right thing to do.

Gavin mechanically checks the pockets of the jacket the stranger is wearing. In one of the inside ones his hand touches something firm and rectangular.

A pilot’s ID, on the name of William Mackenzie.

Gavin doesn’t get a moment to think it over. A warning growl sounds from somewhere real close. Gavin lifts his head up and rolls to the side, at the very last moment dodging a jumping wolf.

Every second counts. Gavin jumps up from his knees and grabs a knife out of his pocket at the exact same moment the animal rushes at him again. Gavin shoves the gloved hand in front of him, right into the open maw. The reek of old dog and blood reaches his nostrils. The pain goes straight down to his bones, but the thick sleeve of his sailor coat protects his wrists from harm. Gavin takes a swing and knifes the wolf in its neck. The wolf whines and untraps its mouth, but Reed isn’t even thinking of stopping, stabbing again and again. Blood splatters onto the hand he’s holding the knife with.

Gavin doesn’t understand what’s come over him. Perhaps he was taking revenge for Richard. Perhaps, for that guy, Will, who never got to get rescued. Perhaps, for all those who couldn’t protect themselves.

He doesn’t have an answer.

Breathing heavily, Gavin loathingly frees his hand out of the open mouth. He can wash the gloves, but he doesn’t intend to keep them. He had another pair inside. The overcoat thankfully didn’t sustain any damage — the wolf couldn’t bite through the thick cloth.

All of a sudden the door slams open and Richard appears on the porch. Pale as a ghost, he is pressing a hand against his wounded side, legs barely holding him up. Gavin meets his eyes and feels relief flood him up to the very top of his head.

It couldn’t have been over six hours since he left, but the fear of not coming back to an alive Richard didn’t let go until now.

“I heard noise and… My God, _Will!”_

Richard grips the door frame with pale fingers. Gavin stands and throws the knife to the side. His legs feel heavy and wadded, and as the adrenaline rush leaves his body, Gavin is left alone with the ringing hollowness inside him.

“You shouldn’t have gone outside. At all,” he rasps and walks inside the house, closing the door behind him. Richard follows him obediently, but… like on autopilot, mind busy with thoughts.

Gavin doesn’t talk about Will, nor about Richard’s lie. He wordlessly unbuttons Richard’s shirt (he really should look for something comfier for him to wear) and unbinds the bandages from this morning. The wound isn’t any better, but Gavin doesn’t notice any signs of it getting worse.

He shakes the contents of his backpack right down onto the floor, not really caring for the integrity of anything inside. Richard is silent, and Gavin is angry — it’s a gradual process, gripping his neck and preventing him from talking. Leaving him free to grunt and huff, like a wild animal.

There’s no pus around the wound. Maybe Richard would’ve gotten better by himself, without medicine. Maybe then Gavin could have also saved the pilot. Maybe, Richard is blaming himself for his death. Or maybe he blames Reed. Or maybe the both of them.

The ointment stings Richard’s skin so bad he hisses through tightly clenched teeth. Gavin isn’t being gentle. He binds Richard tighter than usual, and then throws a package of antibiotics on the mattress next to him and leaves him a mug full of water.

Still wordless, he goes outside, loudly slamming the door behind him. Anger gifts him strength and a weird feeling of indifference. On the shore, behind the base, Gavin digs into a snowpile with bare hands. The frozen snow doesn’t relent easily, but it only adds fuel to the fire inside him. Physical work clears the head, but Gavin refuses to think of what’s waiting him behind the door, and tries to get things over with before the dark.

Gavin doesn’t take a thing off Will and even returns him his ID, hiding it inside a pocket next to a photograph of a woman with short hair. He didn’t notice it earlier, but when he does find it, he stares at it dumbly for a couple of minutes, trying desperately to remember the face to… to what?

At the head of the snowy grave, he sticks in a cross made from two planks, tied by a rope in the middle. It most likely won’t survive the first blizzard, but Gavin thinks it’s the right thing to do. With his knife, he carves on it the name and years of life.

It’s Gavin’s apology to Jeremiah for not having properly bid him goodbye before his last journey.

Gavin spends a few minutes at the grave, turns around and steps up to the wolf corpse. He didn’t like wolf meat for its specific smell and taste, but it wasn’t time or place to be picky.

Richard lifted himself up on his elbows when Gavin came inside the room. He was about to say something, but the sour expression on Gavin’s face made him change his mind. Anger that had left him at the grave reared its head yet again.

Gavin saved Richard and risked his life to get him medicine, and all he got back was lies. His inner voice told him that be he in Richard’s place, he would do the same.

Annoyed, Gavin huffs and hauls the wolf inside the non-working toilet and drops it on the floor. His back and legs hurt, but he can’t afford resting and feeling bad for himself. He undresses until comfortable and grabs the knife.

Rabbits were easier to skin. Skinning a wolf without damaging the pelt was above Gavin. Now, too, having separated the legs and the head off the torso, he tries to pry the knife under the pelt but his hand shakes and the cut is crooked, ruining all the work.

“Fuck off!” yells Gavin and throws the knife aside, surprising even himself. “Fucking hell! Bitch!”

He kicks the door, once, twice, three times until the fire of rage inside him fades away.

Choking on a scream, he presses his forehead hard against the cold tiles and closes his eyes. Bullshit like deep breathing and counting to ten never helped him deal with his anger.

“Gavin,” a hand appeared on his shoulder and Gavin almost moved to throw it off, but decided against. Richard stood behind him and wordlessly squeezed the space just under the base of his neck until Gavin spoke:

“I know you’re not the pilot. What I don’t know is why the fuck you’d lie to me. Well, no, I _know_ why, and I get it but at the same time I don’t. It pisses me off that I went out and couldn’t help your friend. It pisses me off that no one is looking for me, even though I made sure no one would. It pisses me off that I’m so helpless and that I don’t have answers to any of my damn questions…”

Richard’s fingers squeezed harder. He takes a step closer and Gavin is tense as he feels Richard’s hot breath on the back of his head.

“I’m sorry for lying to you. I can barely remember what I said back then, I didn’t know who you were and tried to protect myself,” there’s sincere remorse in his words. “I’m grateful to you for rescuing me. I’m sorry about Will, I’m sorry things turned out this way, but we all are here on the same terms. You can’t change what was meant to happen. Or what was never meant to happen.”

Gavin’s shoulders drop. He presses his forehead harder against the tiles, licks away a tear running down his cheek. Richard’s voice is calming.

“Will and I weren’t friends, but he was a good man and a good pilot. The only one who agreed to help me get to Milton. That place… A person I knew came there a few days prior to the catastrophe.”

Gavin wants to ask what the rest of the world thinks about all this. What, in general, is happening to the rest of the world — one and a half month, he hasn’t heard a news from the mainland. Emotions take over, however, and Gavin smiles crookedly, a paining realization that at least someone out here in the snowy desert was being searched after dawning on him. That at least someone out here was worth risking a life for.

Richard, as if reading his thoughts, grips his shoulder harder and winds his other arm around Gavin’s stomach, awkwardly hugging him from the back. Gavin couldn’t decide what he wanted more — to shake him off or to stay like that forever.

“I’m sorry you think that no one was looking for you… here.”

 _Yeah,_ thinks Gavin, _nobody would think to look for me_ here.

That’s not what he actually says out loud.

“Alright. Don’t lie to me again, Richard.”

“Never,” whispers Richard right in his ear. Gavin can’t hide the shiver his breath sends down his spine. He knows Richard can feel it. He cannot not feel it.

“Never,” echoes Reed, sealing their unspoken agreement, and awkwardly gets out of Richard’s hold. The blood rush is in his ears yet again — from the sudden closeness, from the memories of their morning kiss. Half a year without release, sans all those times he jerked off to porn, lets itself known.

Gavin was always into dicks. He realized that back in high school, when a fight with his classmate (the reason for which Gavin could never remember) all of a sudden turned into kissing, and kissing — in giving each other a hand job and then awkward teenage sex. Richard, judging by his feverish request, played for the same team. Or for both. If Gavin was right, they could… simply relieve some stress.

Gavin looks at Richard, frozen in the doorway, and shakes like a dog to rid himself of the momentarily daze.

No, they can’t. He can’t. It’s all bullshit.

“You need to lie down,” he says, crossing arms on his chest. “You look like you’re about to join Mackenzie in a coupla hours.”

Richard makes a face so Gavin has to add, with a softer tone:

“I’m glad we sorted shit out, but you really gotta sleep. I’ll wake you when Reed’s King Wolf Steak is ready.”

“Fine,” Richard says compliantly and walks to his bed as Gavin gets back to cutting the meat.

He’s doing a better job than earlier.

***

Gavin marinades the meat in cider vinegar without adding any spices. The cut pieces of wolf sizzle on the frying pan, the firewood crackles pleasantly underneath, and outside the window the wind starts its howling song again. The nice weather didn’t last long.

He lazily circles the meat across the pan to fry it faster.

“Where did you learn to cook like that?”

“Like what?” Gavin doesn’t turn around, well aware of how Richard has already woken up and been watching him for the past ten minutes. It’s getting harder to ignore his gaze. Gavin feels the way he gravitates towards Richard, and it’s not only physical, but Gavin doesn’t know how to explain it.

“For food to taste so good,” he says with a smirk, as if it wasn’t obvious. “I’ve never eaten anything better.”

“I thought we agreed you won’t lie to me again,” Gavin fakes being grumpy.

“But it’s true!”

“It’s just the fresh air. And lack of choice.”

Richard laughs quietly and Gavin catches himself smiling. It’s worse than he thought. During dinner they chat about nothing. Gavin finds out they like the same football team and both hate Lions. Their tastes in music are suspiciously similar, as well as political views — which are mostly not giving a shit about politics and everything related.

Richard seems to be feeling better with every hour. He lets Gavin bind him again, drinks the medicine and obediently lies down despite several previous attempts of helping Gavin out. Gavin leaves the house for a bit to smoke and grab some snow to melt.

The cigarette smoke disappears fast in the cold night air. Gavin is staring up, head spinning from billions of stars spilled all over the night sky above. You wouldn’t catch a view like that in Detroit. You wouldn’t catch it anywhere.

He desperately wants to show it to Richard.

And slap himself for even thinking about it.

He throws away the cigarette butt and walks inside. Richard, despite Gavin’s order to be good and sleep, is stubbornly awaiting his return. Gavin gets out of his coat and boots, leaves the bucket of snow on the stove — it’ll melt by morning — and climbs under his own blanket, listening to the crackling of wood and another person’s breathing.

He can’t fall asleep. He feels distressed, but for a new reason. When he carefully turns his head and sees Richard’s profile lit by the fire, arousal washes over him and ties knots at the bottom of his stomach. His dick hardens inside his underwear, and Gavin desperately wants to touch himself.

He remembers the morning kiss — too chaste to arouse, but arousing nonetheless. He remembers Richard’s gazes, his words, his breath on the back of Gavin’s head and his touch. It never crossed the line, but danced on it so skillfully.

Gavin tenses as he listens to Richard’s breathing and, having made sure his companion is sleeping soundly, snakes a hand inside his underwear and grips himself at the base. He presses a hand around his mouth to muffle any sound and quickly starts jerking off with eyes closed.

It’s not good enough. He wants more. He wants to throw away the stifling blanket and jump out of his clothes. He wants to feel someone else’s hands on himself, he wants warm breathing on the head of his dick.

Gavin chokes on a whine and comes inside his fist, clueless that he wasn’t the only one battling insomnia that night.


	5. Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The silence during dinner isn’t the most comfortable. Lack of communication between them is like a string drawn taut, ready to snap at any moment. They offer each other a few insignificant words and settle to sleep.
> 
> Gavin is angry. Mostly at himself. A bit at Richard, who seems to be playing some kind of weird game, rules of which are known only to him.

Gavin spends all morning avoiding Richard’s eyes.

Richard doesn’t notice any change in him, or at least pretends not to notice. After last night, he looks fresher and even stretches his stiff muscles before breakfast. Gavin unconsciously pauses to look at the long strong legs and wide back as he stirs the stewing meat.

“You could use new clothes,” he tells him and quickly looks down at the pot before Richard can catch him staring. “Your shirt’s dirty. Not to mention your jeans.”

“Is there anywhere to wash up?”

Gavin taps the wooden spoon on the edge of the pot.

“Actually, no, but I wanted to melt some snow and boil a few buckets of water to freshen up. Where I live, there’s a bathhouse, but I feel like I’ll grow moss on me before we get to it,” he shrugs. Richard lets out a short hum and nods in agreement as he settles down on a chair. Earlier in the morning when changing the bandages again, Gavin noticed the inflammation started easing up.

It would be good to stay here for four more days until Richard gains enough strength to handle going back to the hunter’s hut.

Gavin tried not to think about what they will be doing those four days.

“You keep talking about this house,” conversationally says Richard, accepting tea and his portion of the stew with gratitude. This time, Gavin threw in some spices, unintentionally earning more praise for his cooking.

“At first I lived here, but this building’s too old and too big. I used to spend all day preparing wood just to provide enough heat for the whole thing”, Gavin sits in his own chair and grabs the fork. “So I decided to look for another place to settle. I don’t know what I was thinking, going out into the forest without any weapon or plan…”

“I get it. You didn’t want to stay still.”

“I guess,” Gavin nods. “I had this booklet with the island’s main landmarks. I was gonna get to the forester’s tower in hope of finding a ham radio, but took a wrong turn and got lost, of fucking course. Would’ve probably ended up as one of those poor guys that got frozen, but I was lucky enough — if you can say so — to come across Jeremiah’s corpse. He was a local hunter. I took his rifle, map and house keys. Wanted to stay there just for the night and then find another place, but… I just never left. Couldn’t.”

There’s not an ounce of judgement in Richard’s eyes, and Gavin is thankful. He still feels like an intruder in the hunter’s home, with all the letters not meant for him and things he didn’t own. Where another person was spending their life.

“I couldn’t bury him,” shares Gavin. “I went back to where his corpse was, but I got there too late.”

Richard watches his face incessantly and then lowers his gaze to look down at the hand Gavin is clenching into a fist. For a second, Gavin thinks he’s about to cover it with his own.

“It’s not your fault, Gavin,” quietly says he, tilting his head to the side a bit. Reed sighs loudly and shakes his head, silent. He wants to believe Richard, but the guilt he feels is stronger than any argument against it.

“Some things we have no control over. You can’t govern everything in your life,” adds Richard, carefully touching Gavin’s fist with his fingers. The touch is electric, and it takes everything in Gavin not to pull his hand back. Instead he relaxes his fingers.

“Such a shame,” he smirks. “Life would be easier.”

“You think?”

“I don’t know,” he replies after a pause, getting up as if nothing has happened. Richard’s hand limply falls on the table. Gavin thinks there’s disappointment in his eyes. Maybe it’s just his imagination. “I’ll go outside, get some snow. Are you in any condition to wash the dishes?”

Richard snorts and lifts his chin up. Gavin smiles. He can’t not smile.

“Don’t forget to take your pills.”

“Yes, daddy.”

Gavin freezes with the bucket in his hands, yet again feeling the familiar wave of heat. Richard smiles tranquilly as he collects the dishes. Silence rings inside Gavin’s head, and he has to force himself to pretend he’s hearing things.

He’s not fucking _hearing things._ Gavin puts on his coat, laces up his boots and walks outside, breathing in the cold air with his whole chest. It makes his lungs prickly.

Gavin tamps snow down into the buckets, trying not to think about Richard’s words, or about the kiss that now seems to have happened in another life. He’s probably not trying hard enough, because those thoughts come back to him again and again.

While Gavin collects snow, Richard manages to do all the dishes, boil some water and even make him coffee. The attention is touching.

Gavin places one bucket up on the stove and the other three nearby, so the snow melts at least a bit.

“Is that enough?” doubtfully asks Richard, tilting his head. Gavin unzips the coat and brushes snow off his hair.

“Should be. It’s not like we’re getting a spa treatment out here, but it’s something,” hoarsely says Reed, warming his frozen fingers around the hot mug. “The bathhouse makes things easier.”

“Alright,” Richard sits across from him and meets his gaze, half-smile on his face. “Do you want to discuss what’s next?”

Gavin hears double meaning even where there’s none.

“Are you talking about…” he takes a sip, giving himself a moment to get his shit together. “About Jeremiah’s radio?”

“Yes,” Richard taps his fingers on the table. “I thought a lot about what you told me. I’m safe to assume that we could find materials to repair it somewhere else.”

“I suppose. But where?”

“Carter Hydro Dam,” Richard gets a paper folded several times over out of his pocket. It appears to be the map of the island, and it’s better detailed than the one Gavin has. “If I estimate correctly, it’s less than a day away from here.”

They both leaned over the map. Richard drew invisible paths with a branch and Gavin closely watched his every movement.

“Where is Jeremiah’s hut?”

Gavin frowned and bit his bottom lip. He was rather shitty at topography — his biggest weakness. He put aside the mug and left the table to fish his own map from inside the backpack. He placed it over Richard’s and pointed at the right place.

“Here.”

Richard thoughtfully drew his brows together.

“Do you reckon there’s any point in going back there?”

Gavin purses lips, understanding what Richard is getting at. They had no reason to make that big of a loop if they wanted to fix the radio. They’d just waste time and resources. Time they had plenty, but resources… With Richard here, they now had to split everything in half.

“No,” he says and looks up at Richard. “Let’s go to the dam in four days time. If you don’t kick the bucket before that.”

“I won’t,” huffs Richard, and Gavin doesn’t waste a second doubting him.

***

The bathroom was colder than the rest of the house; Gavin kept all doors closed to keep the heat inside the living room. While snow melted, he warmed up the bath so Richard in his already poor health didn’t also end up with pneumonia.

Throughout the whole process, Richard kept trying to help him carry the buckets into the bathroom, but Gavin made sure to send him back to bed every time. Despite his injury getting better, he still was in a rather bad condition.

Gavin goes to bathe first. He doesn’t close the door for two reasons: so he doesn’t freeze up, and to test out a small theory.

Getting out of his dirty clothes is a delight. Gavin steps inside the shower cubicle and automatically reaches for the showerhead to turn on the water but stops himself. He’s already gotten used to washing up like that, with a bucket and a scoop, but old habits die hard.

He turns away from the door, squeezes shampoo onto his palm and starts massaging his wet hair. It’s quiet inside the house. The storm outside, on the contrary, keeps weeping and banging against the windows. Gavin can hear the crackle of food, and then subtle, barely audible steps. The floorboards whine real close, and it’s enough for Gavin to realize that Richard couldn’t stay still and is now watching him.

Gavin is aware that he’s not what you call a beauty. Rough features, broken nose that never healed properly, malocclusion, a bunch of crooked and ugly scars. His body wasn’t that bad — thanks to all those hours he spent slaving away in the gym and eating once a day, if he’s lucky. He was lean, with well defined muscles.

Guys usually liked that. Richard, if Gavin had to guess, was of the same opinion.

He knows he’s watching, but he doesn’t know what’s going on inside Richard’s head. If he’s imagining himself topping or bottoming — Gavin doesn’t mind either way. Is Richard imagining joining him, or waiting for him to return? Gavin’s body betrays him, echoing his own thoughts, and Gavin tries real hard to think about the least sexy thing possible.

A scoop of stale water is what helps out in the end, when Gavin silently spills it over himself. The cold takes the rains from his dick and places them back in his brain’s hands.

When Gavin is washing off the last of the soap, the floorboards creak again. Richard, the prudent son of a bitch, leaves not to get caught.

Gavin puts on spare clothing and puts away the dirty ones to wash in the leftover water.

Despite unrest, he leaves the bathroom happy, drying his hair with a towel. Richard’s gaze pins him to the floor. Gavin feels the way Richard watches droplets of water slide down with his skin.

“It’s the small things?” Richard suddenly says with a gruff voice, head tilted.

“Oh, yeah,” Gavin nods, leaving the towel to rest around his neck. “Your turn, hot guy. I found clothes your size upstairs. Be happy you’re not the only one with legs that long.”

“I’m ve- _very_ grateful,” replies Richard and stands up, taking a step forward. Unexpectedly, Gavin feels like hiding into a corner and making himself as small as possible. The air between them feels electric, filling with something that Gavin can’t quite put a name to. A dangerous sort of anticipation?

“Will you help me?” asks Richard with an entirely different tone. The momentarily tension between them disappears in a second. Gavin nods.

“I was just about to offer. You shouldn’t disturb the wound too much until it heals completely.”

Richard quickly makes it inside the bathroom. Gavin places a stool inside the cubicle, and huffs when he catches the questioning stare.

“You think I’ll be able to reach you if you stand?”

Richard laughs shortly and starts to undress. The sight isn’t any less hypnotising than the last time, and Gavin belatedly realizes that it doesn’t end with just the shirt going off.

He wants to swallow the lump in his thought and look away, as if he’s sixteen and inside the boys locker room again.

Richard is built… god-like. Reed doesn’t remember the last time he saw a body that beautiful. Maybe he never has, despite all those visits to certain places, despite the amount of one-night stands he’s had.

Recalling to mind is hard. Gavin pointedly avoids looking where he wants to look.

“I’ll take care of the water, you wash yourself. Be careful with the wound.”

Gavin thinks about everything in the world but how much he wants Richard at that moment. He recounts the leftover food, rationing it for the next couple of days. He thinks about getting a giant hot dog (with hot sauce, green pepper and double cheese) once he’s back in Detroit. He plans their journey to the dam, thinks about all the danger they might encounter on their way there. He remembers Anderson and his endless excuses for drinking so much, how he’s started to miss them.

Anything not to let Richard know what’s happening to him. Why — Gavin isn’t entirely sure himself. Maybe he just doesn’t want to seem like a pervert gone feral.

“Are you alright?”

Gavin shivers, smiles tightly and nods, carefully spilling water over Richard’s head to wash away the soap.

“Doesn’t seem like it. Did I say something wrong?”

“All’s good,” Gavin’s voice is gravelly. “I was just thinking about the trip to the dam. Ever shot before?”

“Do you trust me your rifle?” Richard stands up and Gavin immediately steps back, running away like the coward he is.

“Not the rifle,” he pretends to be interested in the view outside the window. The other sight that’s opened up to him he ignores. “I have a flare gun. It’ll come in handy if I can’t react fast enough.”

“No problem. Gavin?”

Gavin mechanically turns back and shudders. Richard is an arm’s length away from him, looking down at him. Water drops run down his chest, and Gavin wants to lower the gaze to see where they lead to.

“What?” Gavin can barely recognize his own voice. If Richard offers to fuck right there, he knows he won’t even hesitate to say yes.

“You didn’t bring me the clothes.”

“Oh,” he nods slowly. “Right. Be right back.”

The clothes — a thin t-shirt, two sweaters, thick pants, underwear and a few pairs of wool socks — lay a neat pile on Richard’s bed. Gavin, hesitant, grabs it and presses close to him.

“Thank you,” Richard’s voice is coming right behind his back and Gavin almost jumps in place, his heart skipping a few beats. Richard is standing so close, and Reed can feel his body heat even through his own clothes.

Richard reaches with his arms — for a second Gavin thinks to hug him — and takes the pile from him.

“I’ll heat up the dinner,” Reed surrenders disgracefully once again, just so he doesn’t have to stay so close to Richard. He doesn’t get a reply, but Richard’s gaze is telling enough.

It would be easier to just fuck, but sans that feverish kiss, Richard hasn’t made any attempts to shorten the distance between them. Everything else Gavin counted off as curiosity, dumb-ass sense of humor and his own six month long abstinence. Perhaps, Richard didn’t watch him shower, and floorboards creaked for some other reason.

Perhaps, he’s dating someone back in Detroit, and now is just drawn to another human being’s warmth after almost dying.

Doesn’t matter. Gavin isn’t here for all that.

The silence during dinner isn’t the most comfortable. Lack of communication between them is like a string drawn taut, ready to snap at any moment. They offer each other a few insignificant words and settle to sleep.

Gavin is angry. Mostly at himself. A bit at Richard, who seems to be playing some kind of weird game, rules of which are known only to him.

Gavin used to solve all his conflicts through fighting, and truth came easily — whoever got their shit beaten out of them was in the wrong — and it worked flawlessly. Now, the difficulty of communication solving got upped a dozen notches, for many reasons. Firstly, because solitude taught Gavin how to be calm.

He falls asleep and has anxious, hazy dreams without any meaning. A sudden touch and a disquieting shout of his name rudely pulls him out of dreams.

“The fuck…” Gavin tears open his eyes. A thrilled looking Richard is standing on his knees beside his bed and is staring up at the old lightbulb.

That is brightly lit.

Gavin’s heart somersaults inside his chest.

“Light! Someone is back on the island! The power station is working again! We can find help now!.. Gavin?”

Richard is visibly surprised by the lack of response, and Gavin keeps in a sad sigh. He remembers the first time this happened, when he also thought that people came back and his imprisonment in the ice captivity was over. The same thing that killed all the electronics resurrected them during aurora borealis.

“No one is back. Let’s go,” Gavin gets up and starts dressing under Richard’s bewildered gaze. “Put on your pants and jacket. I’ll show you something. Outside.”

Richard, thankfully, doesn’t ask any questions, and it makes something inside Gavin’s chest ache. Trust is the most valuable thing that one person can give to another, except for their own life.

Gavin opens the door to frost that immediately bites into his warm skin.

“Holy fuck,” breathes out Richard and doesn’t say another word, frozen beside him on the front porch.

The world around them has transformed, lit by colorful flashes of the northern lights. It’s unnaturally bright, unnaturally low to the ground. It’s almost as if you could stretch out your arm and touch it.

Gavin’s head spun. He took out the cigarette pack and, a click of the lighter later, breathed in the smoke as he watched the iridescent sky. Hand outstretched, Richard silently asked Gavin to share with him.

When their fingers touch, it’s an electric shock. The air between them sparkled from the tension and it seemed like the smallest spark would set it all off. But nothing did, balancing on that thin line.

They smoked one cigarette for two and Gavin tasted the flavor of someone else's lips on the filter. He didn’t notice right away that Richard stepped closer to him, pressing their shoulders together, but when he did, he didn’t object.

A whole eternity and a bit more they watched aurora borealis dance across the sky, until Gavin’s fingers stopped listening to him. He touched Richard’s shoulder, getting a nod in response.

They wordlessly went inside the house, each thinking their own thoughts.

The lights behind the windows faded away, the lightbulb wasn’t lit anymore.

Without breaking the silence, they both went to bed.

Each — to their own.


	6. Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn’t even seven o’clock when they left the tourist base. The rifle pleasantly weighted down on Gavin’s shoulder again, and the snow was crunchy underneath his boots. All was the same as last week, except now Richard was walking beside him.

Gavin wasn’t used to sharing his daily routine with someone else, but at the same time it was incredible how quickly Richard became a part of his life.

Time crawled by calmly, but there wasn’t a minute in the time of day where Gavin felt uncomfortable. Sometimes they worked in silence, but most times they talked — not a lot about the past, but a lot about themselves.

Richard was the youngest child and his parents’ biggest hope after the older “failure of a” son refused to continue the family business. In reality, Richard also (as he confessed — out of pure adolescent mischief) rebelled and followed his brother straight into the camp of the rejected. After major family drama, they both shortly ceased any communication with their parents, but didn’t decide to live together either: Richard got sick of overprotectiveness back when he was still a kid.

Where exactly Richard had escaped from his parents’ grandiose plans he explained vaguely — to law school. Gavin shrugged and didn’t ask any questions, unwilling to bother Richard much about it. What they told each other of themselves was enough: the failed dates, the lame parties and even their first time jerking off.

The latter topic was Gavin’s idea. Another attempt to embarrass Richard and get at least some kind of reaction out of him. It ended up being even more of a failure than all the previous ones.

Richard, calmly working the grindstone, replied:

“Glory Daze. I was thirteen.”

“Megan Ward?”

“Ben Affleck.”

Gavin almost pricked his finger with the needle. Richard’s smirk let him know he failed at keeping a straight face. Not that the information was new to him — not after the kiss, the jokes and those almost-touches, but hearing Richard verbally confirm what he already knew was… weird. Disturbing. Sudden.

Exciting.

“What about you?”

Richard smiled like the cat that got the cream, shortening the distance between them with such unabashed interest in his eyes that it made Gavin feel both trapped and pissed off. _He_ was the one who brought up the topic, hoping to take the lead. Yet Richard somehow lured him into a trap, cutting off any means to break free.

“I was fourteen,” Gavin continued patching the hole in his jeans with the most deadpan look on his face. The stitches were wry, but Gavin couldn’t find it in himself to care. “I was home alone, browsing channels until I came across Total Eclipse.”

Richard’s gaze turned palpable again. Gavin felt the urge to fill his whole chest with air, suddenly short of breath.

“Who did you imagine yourself as?”

It was a low blow. Gavin inhaled again loudly, tied a knot with shaky fingers and bit off the rest of the thread. He delayed the moment he had to answer as much as he could, fully aware there was no way Richard would drop it. But Gavin did want to reply, at least for his own sake.

“You don’t have to tell me if…” Richard cleared his throat.

“DiCaprio.”

“Oh.”

It’s suddenly silent in the room. Gavin puts the needle back inside the sewing kit and dusts off the jeans before folding them. Richard intently works on sharpening Gavin’s knife.

The ball is in his court.

Gavin knew they will end up fucking one way or another. Sometimes, Gavin would look at a person, and think: everything is leading to sex. He always guessed right. Except, in Richard’s case, Gavin didn’t want _just_ sex. But he didn’t know what more was there to have.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?” Gavin interrupts the silence in a desperate attempt to change the topic. He keeps thinking about how good it would be right now to relocate to the bed.

“Of course. I think I’ll handle being up on legs for half a day,” Richard checks the knife by pressing the blade against his finger. Gavin almost wants to stop him. “Do you know the way well?”

“No, I never went in that direction of the railway, only to the town, down the highway,” Gavin rubs his overgrown chin. “Anyway, you did say our chances are doubled now.”

“We’ll be fine,” Richard aims and throws the knife straight at the warning poster on the wall. The blade pierces right through the head of a drawn wolf.

“Showoff,” grins Gavin and watches Richard bow comically.

 

It was getting dark outside. The storm from earlier calmed down, and large flakes slowly covered the ground in a fresh layer of snow. The oven fire crackled cozily, lighting the room up with a dim orange glow. They stopped using the lantern recently, saving the fuel for the hydro station. They didn’t have that much left, and Gavin almost allowed himself to regret leaving the canister back at the clinic. It would have been such a pain in the ass to haul it back.

Richard had taken the knife out of the wall and left it on the table while Gavin poured them some thick tomato soup. Their food supply was running out dangerously fast, and they needed to either go hunting or hope that there was still food left at the dam.

They often talked about the possibility that they weren’t the only ones in this part of the island, but they never settled on one opinion. Gavin wasn’t entirely sure he would be happy to welcome another person.

At night, he couldn’t sleep. Anxiety wrapped his mind in a tight grip, again and again forcing thoughts of every single way things could go wrong on their journey on him. It kept Gavin up until the first sun rays, when he finally decided to pack their things.

Richard had with him some matches, a canteen, two cans of soup and a chocolate bar. He’s said he was living in old trailers near the logging stand. Gavin had thoroughly ransacked the place ages ago, so not much was left for Richard.

It wasn’t even seven o’clock when they left the tourist base. The rifle pleasantly weighted down on Gavin’s shoulder again, and the snow was crunchy underneath his boots. All was the same as last week, except now Richard was walking beside him.

The dawn, partially hidden by morning fog made them pause. Richard openly enjoyed the sight of snowy mountains kissed by the early sun. Gavin stood next to him, breathing the cold fresh air. He was suspiciously calm, despite the bleary night.

They didn’t make any stops after that. The howling of the wolves from far away would reach them from time to time, but not one decided to cross their path.

A bright red dot on the white snow in front grew as they came closer and turned out to be a few derailed train carriages. Gavin put a hand on his rifle, giving Richard a look. Richard nodded.

They were silent as they walked up to the wagons, exchanging only a few glances. Gavin noticed movement next to one of the cars, took the rifle off his shoulder and aimed. A wolf busy biting into a frozen corpse dropped dead. The two other, spooked by the shot, immediately ran off.

“Shit,” breathed Gavin, getting a sympathizing nod from Richard. The closer they got to the wagons, the more apparent became the fact that it was a passenger train. Not a simple one, either.

“Federal penitentiary institution Black Rock,” quietly reads Richard. “They were transporting prisoners when the blizzards came.”

Gavin silently nudged a snow-covered stump of an arm clad in orange with his boot. On closer inspection, it appeared that most (or maybe all) of the prisoners didn’t survive. Some were crushed by the train car, some torn apart by wild animals attracted by the scent of blood.

“Do you think anyone survived?”

“I have no clue. But we need to be more careful now.”

They search around the train cars but fail to find anything useful. They don’t risk trying to get inside — the construction doesn’t appear to be the sturdiest.

If Richard was correct, they still had a few hours of road. Leaving the train behind them, Gavin grew more and more anxious. Richard noticed and attempted to distract him by telling stories from childhood, but it didn’t work as well as he’s hoped to.

“Listen,” Richard paused suddenly and Gavin had to stop in his tracks. He turned around and looked at his companion quizzically.

“We can do it, Gavin. If someone did survive, I highly doubt they’re armed and in any condition to attack,” Richard squeezed Gavin’s shoulders in his hands and shook him to get him to listen. “We have weapons. You work in police, Gavin.”

“I know,” Gavin sighs deeply. Things seemed to affect him deeper — before, back in Detroit, Gavin was always quick to get into the thick of it, catching a dozen bullets for dinner, collecting scars from knife wounds. Life was more precious now. Fragile.

“You can handle it. _We_ can handle it.”

Gavin lifts his head and meets Richard’s eyes. His smile is soft. From under his dumb white and red beanie sticks out an unruly dark strand of hair. Richard’s face is so close to Gavin’s that he’s able to count every single light freckle decorating his nose.

A slight movement, and Richard is even closer now. Gavin can feel his breath on his face.

Reed bites his lip — the urge to kiss him is too strong. Instead, he lifts his hand and dusts his own hair off sticky snow.

“Let’s go. I’m fine.”

“Let’s go,” echoes Richard, and Gavin can’t ignore the disappointment in his voice. “We need to get to the station before nightfall.”

The rest of their journey they spent in silence, and all they exchange is a couple words here and there. Stomach growling hungrily, Gavin stubbornly refused to take a rest.

It was getting darker, but abandoned vehicles came into vicinity soon enough. They walked faster. To their great surprise, the chain linking the iron mesh fence and the gate was busted.

“Someone came here with a bolt cutter,” grimly deducted Gavin as he pushed the gate open. Any possible traces of human presence if existed, were long covered up by snow, but undoubtedly — someone came here before them. And perhaps they haven’t left yet.

Cautiously stepping over piles of garbage, they got closer to the metal door to the facility. The building towered over them, dark and dreary. It was impossible to see inside through windows hidden by snow to their very top.

“I’ll go in first. You cover my back,” quietly commands Gavin. Richard gives him a firm nod.

The door opens easily — another bad omen. Inside it’s dark and chilly, smells like dust and something mechanical. As their eyes adjust to the darkness, they stay still. A deafening gnashing of metal overhead interrupts the silence, sending a shiver down Gavin’s body and himself a step back. He walks right into Richard.

“That’s…”

“Metal fatigue, I know.”

When they finally gain back the ability to see clear, Gavin slowly makes his way forward, to another closer door, Richard walking across the room behind him.

Gavin tries the door. No luck.

“Richard, there’s…”

It happens so quickly he doesn’t get to shout. From the darkest corner of the room, a blurry shadow appears. Gavin raises the rifle to shoot, but there’s no need. Richard had felt the shadow’s appearance before Reed even got to notice it, and managed to not only dodge the swing but apprehend the attacker by pinning them to the ground.

Heartbeat in his ears, Gavin demonstratively pulls the gun shutter. The familiar sound makes the attacker stop trying to break out.

“Not so fast, buddy,” Gavin grabs the oil lamp off his backpack and lights it to properly look at the stranger. Rough and large face features, a wide forehead, a milliard of wrinkles along with deep eye bags were topped with a short patch of hair.

“What are you… doing… Let me go!”

Richard pins the man harder against the floor and Gavin presses the muzzle right in the middle of his forehead.

“Don’t make any funny moves if you don’t wanna force my hand,” Gavin says, melancholic. He switches to interrogation mode automatically, except now there are no rules or restrictions. “You better answer our questions and behave. Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“Ja… Jacob Hobbs,” the stranger croaks out, still in Richard’s hold. “I was trying to shelter here!”

Gavin gives Richard a wordless glance, asking if Richard trusts Hobbs with his eyes only. Richard’s curt nod is barely noticable.

“Why here and not in the trailers?” Reed points in the direction or the exit with his chin. Hobbs snorts and shuts up, speaking in an entirely new tone:

“Listen. I’m a tourist. This shitstorm caught me in the middle of my yearly fall vacation. I barely even survived. Lived for a few days in my car back on the highway ‘til I ran outta food and fuel. I went through the only railway tunnel that wasn’t completely ruined. Found bolt cutters in one of those train cars, thought I’d get lucky and find something at this dam… Turned out the second door was all locked up, couldn’t pry the thing open with my two hands. And now you two…  Listen, you gotta understand I was defending myself. You scared me there, fellas. I didn’t wanna harm ya. Well I did, but, you know…”

Gavin sighs and lowers the rifle as Richard stands and helps Hobbs up.

“So, the door’s locked,” Reed stretches out every word. Hobbs nods eagerly.

“I was just searching the shelves for a key or something to get inside when you showed up.”

“Okay,” Gavin holds the rifle for a bit before throwing it to Richard. “Watch him while I try to open it.”

“Can you?” Richard asks and lifts a brow, surprised. Gavin smirks and winks at him before squatting at the door.

“We’ll split what we find in half, but we get all the electronics,” Reed gets his makeshift lockpicks out of the backpack and turns to Hobbs, who’s frozen in the middle of the room, rifle aimed right at his head.

“Done deal. I just wanted the food and the fuel,” Hobbs placidly holds his hands up. “What are _you_ doing here, fellas?”

“We need a ham radio,” after a short pause says Richard. Gavin keeps poking at the lock with a frustrated sigh. The mechanism doesn’t seem to be broken or too rusted, even more so — it looks recently used.

“Wanna call for help? Good plan, but without those lights no one’s gonna hear ya,” Hobbs sways from heel to toe with a thoughtful look on his face, watching as Gavin fails at getting the lock to submit. “Take me with ya?

“Only if you’re willing to live a few days with a gun aimed at you,” grumbles Reed. He may not want to admit it, but Hobbs’ appearance is like a breach of privacy. On one hand, three heads are better than two. But those three heads all need to be fed…

“No problem, fellas, I get it,” the man looks over the room before turning back to Richard. “Hey, maybe I can keep searching for that key? Maybe they left a note or something.”

“Gavin?”

Gavin twists his upper body a bit to exchange a look with Richard, one Hobbs most surely noticed, but nods and gets back to lockpicking. Richard has a rifle, while Hobbs doesn’t even have a knife.

“If I knew about the damn weather, I’d forget all about fishing and stay home. Only God knows what the hell’s going on. Are you tourists too, fellas?”

“Sort of,” Richard nods his head slightly. Gavin keeps poking at the lock when one of his lockpicks breaks as he turns it.

“Fuck,” Reed punches the metal door with his fist. “Was the front door open when you got here?”

“Yeah, yeah, there was some stuff here too. Some clothes, empty cans. Nothing useful,” replies Hobbs, busy searching one of the file drawers. Suddenly he freezes, as if he’s found something. “Lord. Would you look at that!”

Richard almost makes a move to come closer but Gavin stops him with a single gesture and stands, cautiously shortening the distance. The man is staring at the drawer intently, but on his face are genuine shock and fear. His fingers, gripping the handle, are shaking.

When Gavin stopped next to him, all he saw was a stack of papers. At that same moment, something cold and sharp pressed against his neck, under his ear right where the arterial vein was.

Blade of a hunter knife. The same one that was hanging off Gavin’s belt just now.

Between him and death was just one wrong move.

Richard aimed at Hobbs’ head.

“Don’t move, _fella,_ or I’ll stick this knife into his neck before you even think to fire that,” his voice changed. Not a hint of doubt or fear was present now. Hobbs grabbed Reed’s shoulder with a bony but strong hand and turned him so he faced Richard. Just to let him see the way the knife drew a line of blood across Gavin’s neck. “Drop the gun. I’m gonna take it and leave, and no one will get to bleed out on that dirty floor. We got a deal?”

Gavin tried not to move. The blade pressed against his neck, the cut burned. He felt droplets of blood slide down and under his scarf. He wanted to swallow so bad.

“Richard, don’t. It’s a trap. I know his type. Piece of shit coward won’t risk his ass to…” the blade pressed harder, leaving a new cut. Gavin gasped for air and shut up.

_Please._

Richard saw his eyes. He knew what Gavin was asking.

“You let Gavin go, I give you the rifle. No one gets hurt,” he says softly. Hobbs bursts out laughing. Gavin winced when his fetid hot breath burned at his ear.

“You think I’m an idiot, pretty boy? Drop the gun and take three steps back. I’m grabbing the thing and getting out of here, you can stay and fuck with that lock as long as you wish. I won’t bother. You have five seconds to decide. One.”

_Richard, don’t._

“Two.”

_It’s a trap._

“Three.”

_Please._

“Four…”

The knife presses even deeper into his neck. Gavin stops breathing. His heart is beating against his rib cage like a caught rabbit, so fast he thinks the bones will crack any second. Richard asks him for forgiveness with his eyes only, drops the rifle to the floor and takes three steps back.

“What an obedient boy you got there!”

Hobbs grins with his yellow teeth and roughly shoves Gavin away. Gavin, unprepared, falls to the ground and badly hits his head and back. Stars start dancing before his eyes.

Hobbs grabs the rifle and aims at Gavin.

A single shot is heard.


	7. Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s also out of it. Gavin feels Richard’s maddeningly fast heartbeat with his back and laughs. He doesn’t need to see the smile that’s on Richard’s face when he leaves a kiss upon Gavin’s ear. Gently. As an apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man i’m terribly sorry for making you guys wait so long. i had an exam on tuesday so i had to focus on that last week, plus manager’s been on my ass lately and i’ve been both stressed and busy and y’all know it’s a tasty combination. anyway i don’t got shit to do except work now so hopefully i’ll get the rest of the story translated and posted quite quickly, we’re like halfway through already

Warning: Chapter contains non-graphic descriptions of cannibalism.

***

Gavin shut his eyes. He was scared to die. Always was.

But the pain never came.

Nothing did. The Earth seemed to stop spinning.

Gavin opened his eyes and saw Hobbs drop to the ground. Under his head grew a dirty puddle of blood. In his hand, Richard was gripping a pistol that looked like a toy compared to Gavin’s rifle.

Gavin looked into his eyes, and didn’t see fear nor guilt in them – only hard determination. He was breathing heavily, as if he just ran a marathon.

“Are you alright?” he asks, meeting Gavin’s gaze. Gavin shrugs, unsure how to name his condition. His legs feel wadded, and the gunshot is still ringing in his ears.

Richard’s hands are slightly trembling as he put the safety back on with a mastered hand. Gavin watches him, rapt. All this time, Richard had a gun on him, but no plans of telling Gavin about it. Why? Was he waiting for the right moment? Did he not trust Gavin? Reed could easily bet his rifle that it was the latter. 

Richard quickly shortens the distance between them and reaches out to untie Gavin’s scarf, but Gavin slaps his hands away and steps back. 

“Don’t even fucking think about it,” he hisses. Richard looks at him both surprised and knowingly. The fucker is aware of what Gavin has to say. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you had a handgun?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Richard stubbornly takes a step forward, shortening the distance yet again. “I didn’t tell right away, and then decided you’d think I was hiding it on purpose, and…”

“And you were fucking right,” Gavin lifts his chin and winces. The cut stings and bleeds, but Reed doesn’t give a shit. Reed doesn’t give a shit about anything. He’s not sure what he wants more, to beat the living crap out of Richard or to throw himself off a cliff.

“I’m sorry,” Richard takes another step, coming so close that for a moment Gavin thinks he can hear Richard’s restless heartbeat. Anger snakes itself over his organs, but something else is there with it. Something like exhaustion. Exhaustion from himself, from lies, from this fucking world.

“What else are you hiding, huh? You’re not a pilot, you have a gun… What’s next? Is this all just a simulation? I’m not in a forest, there was no knife against my throat, and all this is a matrix? You know what, you can go fuck yourself and your trust…”

Richard shuts him up in the nicest way possible.

His cold hands cup Gavin’s face so he can’t escape. Not that Gavin was going to. The kiss is soft — tentative, with no tongue, lips barely parted. Every single cell in Gavin’s body feels Richard — feels his taste, his warmth. It sends shock waves down Gavin’s body. This is exactly what he wanted. For a while. With Richard in particular.

One of them loses it first. The more impatient one, the impulsive.

And it’s not Gavin.

Richard deepens the kiss, shoving his tongue inside Gavin’s mouth. Gavin, he thinks, moans, painfully gripping Richard’s wrists, not to push away but to ground himself. Richard’s lips are hot,  _ he’s _ hot, like he’s got a fever again. Gavin feels so fucking  _ good  _ but so scared at the same time. They kiss for a while, until their lips start to hurt, and shortage of breath inside their lungs reaches a critical low. And even when Gavin leans back, he realizes that this is exactly what he’s been missing.

He can’t help but stare at Richard’s lips. Swollen and red. Inviting. Without a second thought, Gavin kisses him again, roughly tugging Richard down before he has a chance to lean away. He tries to lead but loses the rains of control soon enough, when Richard slides the tip of his tongue across Gavin’s and bites on his lower lip. This kiss is different — tough, possessive, dirty.

Gavin hasn’t been kissed like that in a long time. Gavin hasn’t kissed like that in a long time. He doesn’t try to fill the empty space with himself, isn’t waiting for something to put a damper on the pleasure. Richard fills the space himself, forcing Gavin to experience a visceral, hungry greed. His legs shake and buckle up — either from exhaustion or from excitement. Richard winds his arms around his waist and presses Gavin against himself, not letting him fall.

It seems so right.

All the thoughts inside his head eventually morph into a giant blob of nothingness. Gavin breaks the kiss for the second time when he completely runs out of air. Richard doesn’t recoil, and instead presses their foreheads together. There’s a slight smile on his lips.

“Do you have someone?.. back in Detroit?” asks Gavin with a hoarse voice. It’s the first coherent thought he’s capable of getting out.

“No. Do you?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Richard presses him closer, tighter, as if he’s sealing the deal between them with his embrace.

“I want you to be,” his hesitant whisper twists Gavin’s guts up. He urgently lifts his head and looks Richard right in the eye, trying to find something that would make him say no. He doesn’t.

Instead of answering, Gavin kisses him. And that, too, seems right.

“We need to get a look at your cut,” it’s Richard’s turn to pull back from the kiss. Gavin doesn’t protest. Almost. “Even if it’s nothing, it’d be better if we tend to it.”

_ It’s whatever  _ wants to snort Reed, but suddenly doesn’t find it in himself to argue. He unties his bloodied scarf, puts it away and throws his head back. Richard’s touch is gentle, fingers cold and a bit rough. The cut wasn’t that deep and already managed to heal, but it doesn’t stop Richard from applying some antiseptic on it.

Gavin tries to focus on studying the ceiling joints overhead and not licking his lips too often. He sucks at both.

“Was it your last secret?” he asks, eyes trained up. Richard’s fingers still for half a second. Gavin stops breathing as he waits for his reply.

For some time, Richard is silent, absentmindedly sliding the tips of his fingers across the sensitive skin of Gavin’s neck. Gavin wants to curse. To ask for more. To push Richard against the table and climb on him. Pass the fuck away right where he’s standing from feeling  _ so much.  _ He’s not sure which of those desires is stronger.

“No, not the last.”

Richard’s reply is like a blunt, heavy hit to the back of his head. On one hand, Gavin appreciates the honesty, on the other… On the other, he doesn’t know how to handle this situation. Each person has their secrets, something precious only for them to know. There are many reasons why it’s like that. Why should Richard be an exception?

“Is it something along the lines of smoking weed after school?” Gavin lifts a corner of his lips up, noticing how coy Richard looks as he waits for him to say something.

“Kind of. I will tell you, just give me… time.”

“Yeah, whenever,” Gavin bows his head and meets Richard’s eyes. “Your secrets are your own, Richard. I don’t know what I’d do in your place. Probably the same thing. I should apologize for lashing out on you like that.”

“No, you shouldn’t.”

They kiss again. Slowly, unhurriedly, as if they have forever. Gavin almost purrs when Richard’s long fingers rub a sensitive spot behind his ear. In response he lets his fingers tangle in Richard’s hair and squeezes it just slightly, to get a sigh as his reward.

They can go on forever. And they do for a long time. The oil lamp behind them starts blinking dangerously, threatening to leave them in the dark. Outside, a blizzard starts raging, but sturdy concrete walls separate them from the cold and the noise.

Gavin interrupts the kiss and shuts his eyes tighter when Richard’s lips slide along his prickly cheek. Warmth quickly spreads all over his body, making the tips of his fingers tingle.

A heap of incoherent desires — to laugh, to kiss, to squeeze Richard’s hand in his. They scare Gavin, and he tries to push them down, deep inside him as he takes a step back and wets his lips — unintentionally. Richard’s eyes are dark and promising.

But not now. Later.

Unprompted, they both step up to Hobbs’ body. Gavin searches his pockets and finds a key. He doesn’t need to guess what door it opens.

“He really fucked us over,” louringly states Gavin and gets up, ruffling his overgrown hair.

“No doubt. Not that it got him anywhere.”

“Uhuh.”

Repulsed, Gavin shoves Hobbs’ hand away with his boot and picks up the rifle.

“How much ammo do you have left?”

“Seven bullets.”

“That all you had?”

“The spare magazine disappeared into the ravine with the rest of my things.”

Gavin shrugs nonchalantly, but Richard notices the doubt on his face. Trust is as precious as it is fragile. It needs time.

“You can check my bag.”

“No need. I told you I believe you,” Gavin shrugs again. Euphoria quickly rooms together with the remnants of hurt. Gavin gave Richard another chance because he couldn’t not. He almost hated himself for such weakness. “Let’s go check out the dam. We didn’t come here to fuck around.”

Richard silently nods and grabs the lamp, filling it with the last of their fuel. It would last a couple more hours, that’s all they needed. For now, at least.

The key turns easily, and Gavin pushes the door open, carefully stepping into the room. It’s much dirtier than the previous — there’s piles of metal scraps, huge reels thrown around and skewed shelving units. Richard lights the way by holding the lamp high above their heads.

“Fucking hell!” Gavin slaps a hand around his mouth, barely holding in the rising bile. He’s seen his share of corpses, but now, alone out in the wilderness, he got used to death being present only when it’s necessary.

Under a pile of rags, human remains were barely recognizable. Head and a gutted body — eaten out until nearly empty. If not for the severe frost, the stench would be abominable.

“I’m safe to assume someone was… feeding on him,” says Richard. Gavin spares him a glance and squeezes his shoulder in support for a moment. “Excuse me, I’m going to throw up.”

“Don’t look,” Gavin pushes him out of the way. “No point looking at this shit. Let me… I’ll take care of this, you go find something useful.”

Richard stares at him for a long moment, and then nods in gratitude, setting the lamp down on a shelf to light up most of the room.

In the same pile of rugs Gavin finds a bright orange prisoner uniform, with a name and a number on it.

_ Hobbs. 00594. _

Gavin berates himself for being so blind, and for not being cautious enough, for allowing himself to think that some weather anomaly would wipe all the vile pieces of shit humans off the face of the earth and leave only the good ones, the ones ready to come to the rescue at any moment.

On a workbench nearby he finds folded canvas fabric. It’s exactly what he needs. He places it on the ground and pulls the corpse closer and onto the canvas with great effort. A sweet smell of rotting flesh finds its way into his lungs, settling down on his tongue as sticky casing. He feels like throwing up again. He holds in his breath and quickly wraps the remains with the fabric.

“Do we have any kerosene left?” Gavin spits and steps away from the corpse. Richard shakes his head no. “Fuck. I’d burn him outside, but… we’d just attract wolves here. Or someone bigger.”

“We can try searching for some, and carry him over to Hobbs for the moment. It’s relatively colder in there, so…” Richard makes a gesture with his hand and walks closer.

“Are you sure…”

“I am. Grab the other end.”

They carry the now hidden remains into the first room and tightly shut the door behind them.

No point fearing the dead when the alive are a bigger threat. But to Gavin the prospect of spending the night in the company of two dead bodies is unsettling. One… and a half dead bodies. One corpse and a quarter of another. The grim thoughts make Gavin laugh nervously. Richard looks at him in surprise, weirded out by the sudden change of atmosphere, and then, without a word, hugs Gavin, tightly pressing them close together.

“This is fucked up.”

“For real.”

For a minute — or maybe longer — they stand there, hugging, grasping at each other like two men drowning in a storm. All the previous problems they’ve had become meaningless, and Gavin has a single thought: had one of them reacted too slow, instead of one ravished corpse there’d be two more.

“How did you deal with such things on the job?”

“Drank. In most cases. Until passing out, so I wouldn’t even think of drinking ‘til the next time I’d see a corpse like that. Didn’t always help.”

“I wouldn’t say no to something strong right now,” admits Richard and Gavin laughs quietly, nuzzling into his jacket for a moment. It smells of bonfire smoke, synthetic fabric and Richard himself. His scent, his skin. It has a weird calming effect on Gavin.

“Some tequila, salt and half a slice of lime would be real nice,” dreamily says Gavin. After what they’ve seen, he couldn’t  _ not  _ want to drink until lights out.

“Only if you let me lick the salt off the dip on the back of your waist,” Richard replies so impassively Gavin loudly snorts out of surprise. Stress that has been gripping his throat in its icy fingers just now lets him breathe again. Richard has a unique ability to calm him down, like no one else does.

“If you find me tequila, salt and lime in this shithole, I’ll let you lick it off anything,” Gavin promises. Richard smirks. There isn’t a trace of sickness on his face anymore, and Reed can’t even begin to think about how happy that makes him.

“That’s a promise, Gavin,” Richard purrs. Gavin wants to kiss this impossible man again. Or to shove him off, so he doesn’t think too fucking highly of himself. “I think we need to search the workshop, wait the night out and then leave this fucking place for good. I don’t want to stay here for too long.”

Gavin nods in agreement and gets out of the embrace, grabbing the lamp off the shelf.

Richard quietly tells him the station’s history as they walk around the rooms in search for something useful. After an earthquake that shook the island, the corporation sponsoring its development suffered constant losses. The whole shebang turned out to be one hundred percent illiquid. People were fired, and the hydro station was closed.

The inside of the workshop did indeed turn out to be mostly intact: piles of construction debris and abandoned personal things still greeted them, as well as a broken passage to the lower dam housing atop itself concrete rubble.

They’ll never find out Hobbs and his victim’s story, but Gavin suspected that the unknown man lived here for a while until he met his death. On the opposite corner of the room Richard discovered a lived-in resting place and a makeshift barrel brazier. The walls around were blackened by the heat — the fire must have been lit there quite often.

They didn’t find a lot of useful stuff. Another grindstone, a few boxes of matches, a can opener. There was no food, just old tin cans, wrappers and crumpled pop cans.

The canister they managed to discover had only a little left on the bottom. Richard transported the remains into a smaller container and stored it in his backpack.

Most likely, the station was looted way before them. The electronics, however, were intact. Only one of the stationary phones was broken to shit, seemingly thrown to the ground in a fit of rage. Gavin takes apart a few dead radios and phones to find all the needed components. Most of the bits from newer electronics wouldn’t fit Jeremiah’s transmitter, so Gavin had to ransack everything that could contain the needed parts.

“Look, there’s another door,” Richard points at a doorway blocked by shelving units and planks. It doesn’t seem like Hobbs nor the hermit previously living here were that interested in the rest of the rooms.

Together, they clear the path. The door is locked, so Gavin once again grabs his lockpicks. The mechanism doesn’t resist for too long, and when it does give in, Reed gets up from his knees, triumphantly opens the door and does a silly bow when Richard applauds him.

Behind all the rubble they discover a staircase leading up. Richard walks in front, holding the lamp above their heads to light the path. The second floor turns out to be housing an office. It‘s relatively warmer up there than downstairs, and both of them unzip their jackets.

“You go clockwise, I — counter. Meet me at that door.”

In less than an hour on one of the tables grows a mountain of various useful bits and bobs, including a bradawl, a small tool set, some meds, hygiene products, scissors, a few cans of coffee and tea, and a lot of snacks — mostly chocolate and soft drinks from a vending machine they broke.

“Well, if wolves don’t get to us, guess we’ll die of diabetes. Awesome,” snorts Gavin, ripping a chocolate bar wrapper as Richard ransacks a drawer. “Did you grab Hobbs’ knife? Could be useful.”

“No, let’s take it when we go back. I don’t think we should start a fire in here. There’s nowhere for the smoke to go,” Richard thoughtfully looks the room over for any exhaust hoods. “We only have one bedroll. How were you planning on spending the night here, if we didn’t?..”

“Would’ve lent it to the one recovering from an injury, like a gentleman,” huffs Gavin, chomping down on the chocolate bar. “Slept in my clothes. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“No need for that now.”

“No need,” agrees Reed and smirks. “Let’s make our nest, eat and go to sleep. I’m so fucking tired, I just want this fucking day to end already.”

Out of the things left at the office and a few forgotten blankets they make a decent bed, on which Gavin lays the bedroll. It is definitely warmer here compared to the rest of the building. Their outer clothing layers and shoes rest on a table nearby.

After a light dinner consisting of cold canned tomato soup, chocolate and pop, Gavin walks the room over again, opening random drawers as Richard fiddles with his backpack in the corner.

“You goin’?” Gavin plops down on an office chair and spins, eyes trained on the ceiling. They didn’t manage to find any fuel, and had to spend the last not to sit in the dark.

“I have something for you,” Richard walks up to him, putting up a show of hiding his hands behind his back. Gavin raises his eyebrows. Did they not search every corner of this damn place?

Akin to a magician, Richard presents a tiny duty-free bottle of tequila. Gavin chokes on a breath as he stares at the find. Impossible…

“Not only that,” Richard looks so pleased with himself as he places the bottle on the table and fishes out a small opaque bottle with  _ Salt _ on it, shaking it. Gavin’s lips stretch into a smirk on their own volition.

“Find any lime too?”

“Yep,” emotionlessly says Richard.

“Don’t bullshit me. It doesn’t count if it’s rotten.”

Richard smirks in reply and places a dark green pop can next to the tequila.

“What’s this, foreplay?”

“Read the label.”

“Lime.”

_ Lime. _

There’s a gust of fire at the bottom of Gavin’s stomach. He clenches his fingers into a fist to hide the sudden tremor in his hand.

“No-no-no,” he says with fake indignation. “This doesn’t fuckin’ count! I asked for lime. The fruit. Not the drink.”

“You didn’t specify, Gavin,” softly replies Richard, and in that softness Gavin hears a second meaning. “You said, and I quote: ‘If you find me tequila, salt and lime’. Tequila,” he taps his finger on the bottle. “Salt,” slides it across the shaker. “Lime,” traces it around the rim of the can. “Three out of three conditions, Gavin. So, what about that ‘off anything’?..”

He gets dangerously close to Gavin, who slowly throws his head back as he just as slowly looks Richard’s body over. Air is running thin, and there’s an urge to lick his lips.

Richard is tall. When he stands next to him like that, Gavin’s eye-level with his navel. Or  _ not navel, _ if he looks further down.

“Will you not keep your promise?” asks Richard, tilting his head like a bird. Gavin lifts his chin up and smiles mysteriously before quickly grabbing Richard by the belt and tugging him closer.

Richard makes a choked up sound as he feels Gavin’s lips on his zipper. Gavin grips his hips tight, not to make him stay but to hide the nervous tremors in his fingers.

“We didn’t agree on this, but…”

“Shut up.”

Gavin slides the tip of his tongue down the cloth, tracing the edges of the half-hard dick. Richard’s breathing turns rugged. He places one hand on the back of Gavin’s head and finds the zipper with the other. The sound of his pants being unzipped in the silence of an abandoned building is deafeningly loud.

Arousal grabs Gavin by the nuts, transporting him from reality into a worn down bliss. Gavin wants more and now, no games, no taking it slow. He traps the fabric of Richard’s underwear with his lips and tugs it down, helping himself with his fingers. Richard lets out a quiet  _ Fuck _ and grips his hair, tugging Gavin’s head back to meet his eyes.

Gavin smiles at him wildly. In the lamp’s flickering light Richard looks like a demon. The orange tones play with the shadows across his face, and it looks stunningly beautiful. Richard lets him go and tugs Gavin upward. Gavin wants to argue and comply both at the same time.

He settles down on the second choice, getting up from the chair. Richard presses him closer with hands on his waist and bites into his lips with a greedy, hungry kiss, his hard dick poking Gavin’s thigh. Gavin winds arms around Richard’s neck, grazing the hairline at the back of his head with the very tips of his fingers and presses even closer, rubbing their hips together so hard it almost hurts.

Richard moans into his mouth and lets his hands wander downward, groping Gavin’s ass without invitation. Gavin likes everything he does. He wants more. Without breaking the kiss, he hastily unbuckles and unzips his own pants until they’re down to his knees, and places Richard’s hands back on his ass.  _ Now _ inviting.

Richard breaks the kiss off and presses his lips into Gavin’s neck, leaving a hickey right on the cut. Gavin thinks Richard growls from an overabundance of feelings. He wants to reply with his own, all things human forgotten.

And he does. He does, when he feels a wet tongue behind his ear. He does, when Richard’s fingers sneak under the waistband of his underwear and tug it down, spreading his asscheeks apart. Wide. Just like Gavin wants him to.

Gavin growls when he feels Richard’s fingers on his rim, how he’s been licking them all over just a second ago completely forgotten.

Richard doesn’t push in, and Gavin is grateful. The fingers just circle around the hole, caressing the sensitive muscle and sending shivers upon shivers down Gavin’s spine. Legs buckling, Gavin wanted to let himself fall and forget himself in the sensations. He wanted it slow and gentle. Rough and dirty. He wanted Richard. All of him. Fully.

Those thoughts scared him, but Gavin’s mind, fucked up by a tidal wave of arousal, chased away the anxiety and held onto pleasure like a lifevest.

They lower themselves on their knees, but Gavin doesn’t remember when. Richard licks the dip behind his ear, nibbles on his earlobe, traces the ridges of his ear with the tip of his tongue as his fingers imitate thrusts between his cheeks. Gavin is holding himself open but doesn’t realize right away.

Richard pushes him toward the bedroll but instead of letting him fall on his back, he jerks Gavin around. Gavin doesn’t mind — settles down comfortably, lifting himself up on his knees and getting stuck in his own pants. He likes feeling helpless now. He wants to be like that now.

Richard’s body over his feels right — a pleasant, hot weight that forces Gavin to grip the edges of the bedroll. Richard presses his nose into the hair on the back of Gavin’s head, breathing loudly. Gavin lifts his hips and boldly rubs himself against him.

Richard doesn’t hurry to accept the invite. Gavin both hates him and loves him for it. He bends under Richard’s hands when they hoist up the bottom of his sweater and shirt. There’s so many layers — too many, but no time to get rid of them. Richard caresses his back, glides his palms across his shoulder blades, ribs, waist. Slides his tongue on the dip on his lower back, leaves a stinging bite on his asscheek, blindly searches for scars to kiss, turning Gavin into a ball of bared nerves.

He wants so much more, but for now they will take what they can get.

“Press your legs together,” tells him Richard, right into his ear, and Gavin feels it right to his tailbone. He obediently does as told, acutely aware of his own throbbing dick that demands attention. Spine bent, Gavin shoves his face into the bedroll, sucking air in through parted lips like an animal.

Richard finds a comfortable position and towers over him, breath hot on the back of his neck. With a wet thrust between Gavin’s thighs he moans muffledly, and Gavin’s spine is as if the moan shocked it with a taser. Richard grabs his hip so hard there will be a bruise there, and thrusts again, desperately and chaotically. Spit isn’t enough for smooth gliding, but he doesn’t want to stop. Gavin, too, doesn’t want him to stop.

Richard’s fingers teasingly caress his navel, barely touching his leaking dick. Gavin curses and moans through gritted teeth, aroused from this game to the point of pain.

For a moment Richard draws back to lubricate himself with more spit and thrust back in. The hot head of his cock slides through between Gavin’s thighs and pokes into his balls, and Gavin has to whine desperately, a plea for Richard to touch him at least a little bit.

Richard bites down on his neck, fingers squeezing around Gavin’s shaft. Gavin screams and jerks his hips to welcome the sensation, but Richard lets go before Gavin can do anything.

Gavin cries with a voice that isn’t his own and bites down on his own hand, unasked for tears hot on his cheeks. It almost hurts, but it’s so fucking good. Richard touches him too little, moans into his ear too hotly, thrusts between his thighs too roughly. Richard is too much. All of him.

His movements become faster and more frequent, while moans – louder. Richard has both of Gavin’s hips in a steel grip as he tugs him closer. Gavin can feel the tremor in his hands and voice, and freezes in anticipation, only for Richard to suddenly make a change of plans. He slides out, thrusts between Gavin's cheeks without entering and at the same time jerks Gavin’s dick with one sure touch.

The world blows up in an explosion of pleasure through pain. Gavin falls into salvatory darkness for a few moments, and when he comes back he can barely feel his body. There’s a ringing emptiness inside his skull. He wants to die, to burst out laughing and then die again. Richard lies next to him on his side and absentmindedly caresses his ass, drawing complex shapes with trembling fingers.

He’s also out of it. Gavin feels Richard’s maddeningly fast heartbeat with his back and laughs. He doesn’t need to see the smile that’s on Richard’s face when he leaves a kiss upon Gavin’s ear. Gently. As an apology.

Gavin turns around and invades Richard’s space to get his kisses, just because he’s allowed to. 

Just because it feels right.


	8. Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not a thing to be stolen,” he takes a step forward. Richard stays where he is, towering over him like a colossus. “I didn’t lie when I said I didn’t have anyone. I broke up with him. Like a coward, maybe, but I did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when i talked about updating more regularly i didn’t take into account that i’m a lazy piece of shit and i’m sorry for that you’re free to murder me i suppose. i deserve that much  
> also i started playing the long dark again recently for the first time in a year? or two? and realized i’ve got quite a few names misspelled. went and fixed that in the previous chaps, sorry if you noticed and it bugged you  
> anyway enjoy!

That night Gavin sleeps like the dead, without any nightmares or dreams. 

When he wakes up, his head is pleasantly empty. The memories of yesterday — more specifically, of one particular part of yesterday — start a fire inside him. They both fell asleep as they were, half undressed. Richard is hugging him across the stomach, chest flush to Gavin’s back, face hidden in Gavin’s hair. His hot breath tickles his neck.

Gavin catches himself smiling.

He shoves a hand between their bodies in hopes of hoisting up his underwear and pants but then his fingers touch Richard’s soft dick. Without giving it much thought, Gavin slides a finger across the tip. And then again, and again.

Richard’s breathing quickens. With the back of his head, Gavin feels a gaze on him.

“You’re not a shy one, huh?” Richard’s voice is raspy from sleep. He presses his lips to Gavin’s neck, sending sweet little aftershocks down his spine.

“Dunno,” replies Reed in a similar fashion, tightening his fingers on the shaft. Richard exhales loudly. “Not shy enough to fuck you?”

He turns to face Richard and smirks. Somewhere deep inside him a scratching fear of rejection scars the walls of his ribs, but then Richard kisses him first and presses their hips together. They kiss long and slow, enjoying each second of the calmness. Gavin wants to snap his fingers and stop the time, to stay in this moment forever.

For a second Gavin opens his eyes and meets Richard’s already looking at him, hazy with arousal. It’s as if he’s been enjoying the view of Gavin’s face this whole time. Gavin frantically chases away the fear, his fingers tight in Richard’s hair as he deepens the kiss. Richard easily catches the drift and shifts to press Gavin to the bedroll with his weight.

Gavin’s exhale is shaky.

“You’re gonna crush me,” he snorts and shivers when Richard traps his wrists and hoists them above Gavin’s head, pinning them there. Gavin wants to try to break free just to test how much strength Richard would apply to hold him down. Playing with restraint was something Gavin  _ really  _ fucking liked. His body reacts appropriately.

“It’s so you don’t run away from me.”

Gavin laughs and buckles his hips.

“Don’t even hope to get rid of me. You’re proper fucked, buddy.”

“I like it,” replies Richard and kisses him again.

It’s so  _ soft,  _ but Gavin melts — or his brain does, at least. Usually, such things if not annoyed him, then made him uncomfortable. Reed calls it  _ Happily Ever After  _ Syndrome _. _ But now he likes what he hears. And that is the worst.

All thought leaves his mind at once when Richard licks up his neck, from the dip between his collarbone to his chin. He kisses yesterday’s marks, stings the skin with short bites, and Gavin pulls his hands out of the hold only to feel Richard’s grip get tighter around his wrists.

Richard holds him flush against the bed, cutting off any means to break free, and kisses so slowly and sensually that Gavin’s knees start to shake. He melts again and again, as if he’s sixteen all over — from the kisses, from the unhurried way Richard humps him, his every move making Gavin feel greedier for more.

Unhurried and measured, the tempo drives him mad. Richard doesn’t change the pace nor the amplitude, like a fucking sex machine. Gavin twists and breaks, turns inside out from how great it feels. He moans swear words when he’s not begging into Richard’s mouth.

Richard — the impossible, fucking, motherfucker — smiles, keeping the sadistic pace of his movements.

It’s getting harder and harder to get a hold of himself. Gavin wordlessly begs with his lips only for Richard to do something, and Richard does. The world snaps shut, blurry on the back of Gavin’s eyelids until it no longer is, and everything comes back to him just as quickly, deafening him with the sounds of his own wayward breathing.

Gavin feels the fingers on his wrists let up their iron grip. Gavin chases Richard’s lips for a kiss again, trying not to think about how this past day he’s kissed Richard more than anyone else before.

Neither of them want to leave the bed. Reality — in the face of Hobbs’ corpse, in the necessity of repairing the transmitter to save them out of this ice prison — blurs into the background under the vim of urges and feelings that Gavin fears to think about.

When Richard’s palm traces down Gavin’s navel, Gavin wants to surrender to the pleasure, but at the last second catches Richard’s hand and musters up the softest smile he can when Richard gives him a quizzical look.

“We need to go. Later… we can continue later,” the promising hoarseness of his voice isn’t accidental. Richard smirks and nods, but he does teasingly squeeze Gavin’s thigh in the end.

Gavin rolls his eyes. Impossible man.

***

After a short talk they decide to leave the bodies where they were. It’s weird to look at the corpses — Gavin felt bad for the unknown man, but at the same time despised Hobbs and didn’t want anyone to know or remember what he did. Forgetting was where the real death lay.

“Let’s go?” Richard fixes the straps of his backpack. Gavin waffles for a moment before nodding and turning around, sour.

“We can tell others about them when help arrives. They’ll be buried,” Richard says, as if reading his mind. Gavin squeezes his shoulder shortly.

“Yeah. Let’s do that. We need to go now. Doubt we’ll get back by dark but we better hurry up anyway.”

The sky was clear and light when they left the building. Gavin threw his head back, gazing at the dawn peeking over the horizon. Be he superstitious — and he better, as practice proved — today was going to be calm.

“If we turn left at the tourist base we’ll end up taking a considerably quick shortcut,” Richard studies his map as they walk. “We just have to not get lost. You know those places, right?”

“Yeah. Let’s go down from there and walk through the trap zone. I got a few things set up there. Maybe we’ll get lucky enough to find something, I’m fucking sick of soup,” Gavin makes a face. “When we’re back in Detroit I’m gonna raid Sam’s Diner and order the entire menu. I’d kill a man for a burger and some beer right now.”

“We have tequila,” reminds him Richard with a slimy smile. Gavin’s back covers in goosebumps. He audibly exhales.

“Yeah. Let’s celebrate our return,” he agrees, trying not to smile too wide.

When speaking about coming back, Gavin never said  _ if.  _ There was no doubt someone would answer their call. Now, there was something that bothered him more: what would happen to them once everything’s over. As expected, Gavin had no clue.

His mind gave birth to a dangerous, toxic thought. What if Richard abandons him once they’re back? What if Richard only needs this not to lose his mind? What if  _ Gavin  _ does, and all this chemistry between them is just an animalistic desire for human warmth.

“Sam’s got shitty coffee,” says Richard all of a sudden, distracting Gavin from his grim thoughts.

“Been there?” Reed asks with a surprise, barely avoiding stumbling over a snow-covered rail.

“Yeah, happened to. I didn’t quite get to check out his menu, though, but…”

Gavin imagines Richard — in a suit. Tie, cufflinks, starched black shirt, dress shoes so polished they shine, and a leather briefcase in his hand. The picture quickly gets Gavin feeling a few degrees hotter, and then his imagination draws himself up right next to Richard. In his ripped jeans, ratty Air’s and worn leather jacket. He doubts it’s one of the cases where opposites attract.

“Shame. He’s got mean waffles and great burgers. The meat’s fuckin’ amazing. I think the guy travels to get it, like in King’s  _ 11/22/63.” _

“You’ve convinced me. I’ll take you there when we get back,” smirks Richard, giving him a pointed look. It covers Gavin like a warm blanket. He shrugs and turns his face away to hide a dumb smile.

They walked without stopping. The sun shone brightly, reluctantly sharing some of its heat. There was no snow, no fog, and the road usually packed with wolves seemed welcoming and friendly. As they made their way back, Gavin took to telling Richard about work, recalling the most interesting of cases. Richard was a great listener — made scathing remarks where needed, laughed at jokes, asked a lot of questions.

Gavin felt as if he’s known Richard for an eternity. He wished to know him for two.

“Can I ask you something?”

It was getting darker. They took a quick break to polish a few chocolate bars and gulp some water. The tourist base was really close, but neither Gavin nor Richard felt like spending another night there.

“Sure thing,” Gavin hands Richard his bar and hoists his backpack up where it belongs as they start walking again.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were going away?”

It was a difficult question. Gavin wasn’t quite sure he knew the answer himself.

“I wanted to take a break. By myself,” he starts, closing his eyes for a moment and chasing away the unwelcome memories. “We just finished a tough case. Got one of the heads of a local drug cartel that dealt child pornography. I was leading the case for over three years, and it’s been sent to the archives as cold many times, but again and again new clues would pop up. The case would be reopened, I’d chase around the city in search for more traces, stay up for days, skip eating and shitting just to find at least something, at least one little clue. We went through a dozen of paltry dealers before we got to the big prize. I’m still not sure it wasn’t a layman, to be honest. But Fowler was eager to close the case with a bang and stop us from getting fucked by the FBI and the higher-ups.”

Richard has a strange smile on his face.

“Why wasn’t the case given to the FBI?”

“Fuck if I know. It was cold and on all accounts hopeless. Suits don’t like cases like that,” Gavin huffs and stuffs the wrapper into his pocket. The hunger backed off, but the inside of Gavin’s mouth was so sweet he wanted to throw up.

“That is why you ran away?”

For a few moments Gavin is silent, collecting his thoughts. Richard doesn’t hurry him, but definitely is waiting for an answer.

“No. There was something else,” Reed sternly stares straight ahead, avoiding Richard’s eyes. “When I said I didn’t have anyone back in Detroit, I… Well, that’s not exactly right. For a few years I was in a relationship with this man.”

Gavin can’t see it, but he doesn't miss the way Richard stumbles. He also feels his gaze — now tense. Demanding. Cautious.

“His attitude toward my job was ambiguous since the beginning. When the cartel case got reopened, I fully committed myself to it. It was supposed to be my own Magnum Opus of investigations. I was almost obsessed with it,” Gavin looks far, far ahead. Voice shaky, there is still pride in his words. “In half a year we saw each other maximum three or four times a month, and Phil wasn’t stoked about that. I didn’t care at the time. The case was above our relationship, and it bothered him.”

Gavin tried to understand what he felt as the words left him. But inside him was empty — no pain, no regret. Nothing. Just a muted happiness and relief that he can finally talk about this out loud.

“When I closed the case I got an invitation for transfer. I’d take an exam and leave for Chicago to become a sergeant,” Gavin turns his head to look at Richard. He doesn’t appear shocked or disturbed. Only tense — as if he already knew Gavin had a boyfriend, and was now finding out the details. “Phil was happy. I thought he wouldn’t want to drop his job and move to God knows where for me. But Phil was genuinely excited, and the next day…”

Gavin swallows and shuts his eyes. Guilt pangs somewhere behind his ribs.

“The next day he proposed. Said we can finally get married in Chicago. That he’d wanted to for a while now, but the ruling of Obergefell v. Hodges wouldn’t be appealed by the Supreme Court in Detroit. Said he’d bought the ring a while back and just couldn’t find the right moment.”

“What did you say?”

Gavin wants to stop and embrace Richard, but instead picks up the pace. They go down the road in total silence. Darkness has finally settled and Reed has to fish a flare out of his pocket to light the way.

“I said I needed to think about it. He didn’t expect that and seemed to get what would happen next,” Gavin confidently walks forward, using notches he left on the trees around as landmarks. They needed to hurry up. “That same day I bought a house here and a plane ticket. Ran away.”

“Were you scared?” Gavin fails to put a name on the emotion evident in Richard’s voice.

“I just couldn’t say no.”

Rest of the way they make in silence. They lower the wolf carcass Gavin’s left hanging off a tree a week ago in silence, pick it up in silence, walk up and down the hill in silence.

Jeremiah’s house was on another hill. The moon up above shone generously upon the house and the nearby buildings, and they no longer needed the flare’s light but Gavin decided to keep it in case a wild animal managed to avoid all the traps he’d set up.

Letting Richard hold the entire wolf carcass, Gavin rips off the plank he hastily nailed to the doorframe and opens the large padlock. 

Inside it’s dark and cold. Richard drops off the carcass in the corner Gavin points him to. Without a word, they make a fire inside the furnace and start undressing.

Jeremiah’s house was relatively small — all it was a room without any divisions (sans the curtain separating the kitchen section off the bedroom), with furniture and miscellaneous household necessities along the walls. Only the big warm chair with pelts thrown across it was in the middle, next to the furnace. Gavin loved to sit in it in the evening and read under the lamp’s light. To his luck there was quite a few books and old magazines to come around.

Under the thin rug next to the dinner table there was a hatch leading to the basement. Gavin pulled out of it his jerky reserve, meant for special occasions. Tonight was one of such.

It was steadily getting warmer inside. Gavin shed his thick wool sweater, leaving him in his shirt only, and stretched his stiff shoulders. Richard explored the house like a silent shadow — studied the pictures hung across the walls, newspaper clippings, old hunting spear, wooden figurines, the dreamcatcher hanging above the narrow bed.

“If you wanna talk, this would be the time,” Gavin pauses near the table. Richard’s silence is weighing down on him.

“Your secrets are your own, Gavin,” replies Richard sarcastically, distracted from looking at the dreamcatcher. The short burst of irritation is hard to get a hold of. “Had I not asked, I would’ve found out once we got back… when you’d be stolen from me?”

Flustered, Gavin lifts his chin, ready to defend himself.

“I’m not a thing to be stolen,” he takes a step forward. Richard stays where he is, towering over him like a colossus. “I didn’t lie when I said I didn’t have anyone. I broke up with him. Like a coward, maybe, but I did.”

Anger — at both Richard and himself — scratched his insides with its claws.

Gavin takes another step.

“I didn’t lie to you.”

“Just like that? Easily smoothing things out?”

“Think what you want to fuckin’ think.”

“You use this move often to get what you want?”

Gavin takes a swing at under Richard’s jaw and only after realizes what he’s done. Richard sways but stays standing. A few seconds is all he needs to get his footing and rush at Gavin. The shove is too strong — all air leaves Gavin’s lungs when he collides with the wall. Richard grabs him by the chest, forcing him up, to meet his eyes.

And then they are kissing, and that kiss resembles a fight for power more than anything. Richard’s fingers tighten around his throat. Gavin can taste the salty tang of Richard’s blood on his tongue, but it doesn’t stop him. All of a sudden Richard lets go of the lapels of Gavin’s shirt and instead grabs him under the thighs, lifting him up. Gavin jerks, more for show, and catches Richard’s gaze, hazy with lust.

“I want you,” simply says Richard. “You’re lucky I was too weak when you were taking a shower. I would’ve bent you over right there. I know you left the door open so I could watch you.”

His whispering is burning hot, adding fuel to the fire. Gavin doesn’t argue. Only smirks — in a way to let Richard know he’s hit bullseye.

“Tomorrow.”

“You’re gonna suck me off, then.”

Gavin shudders. With Phil they’d tried out many kinks, but Phil wasn’t a talker, and, boy, if Gavin didn’t love to run his mouth in bed. Richard seemed to be of the same type. And the way he did it was too… too good. Like everything else.

Richard lowers him down. Gavin promptly drops to his knees and with trembling fingers fights the zipper of Richard’s pants. He feels a hand caressing the back of his head, and all it does is excite him even more.

When the last clothing barrier between them drops to Richard’s feet, Gavin grabs a hold of his dick near the base and tastes him, catching the way Richard tenses. The short lick of a tongue steals a broken sigh out of him. Gavin wants it slow and leisurely, to hear Richard beg, but Richard’s got other plans. Lips a tight circle around the tip, Gavin feels the pressure on the back of his head increase tenfold. It’s so strong, there is no way he can resist.

Gavin uses Richard’s thighs to support himself, but then Richard tightens the fingers in Gavin’s hair and tugs him back, forcing Gavin to lift his face.

“Come on,” Richard orders and presses on his head again, demanding Gavin to get back to it. Gavin catches himself thinking he’s melting again — from the commanding tone, from the unrestrained desires, from his own position. His hard dick is painfully pressing against the zipper of his pants.

Richard takes a hold of his head and fixes Gavin in place, thrusting deep and hard into his open mouth. Gavin chokes on it, holding back the gag reflex, and relaxes his throat as much as he can, fingers gripping Richard’s thighs. Richard isn’t even thinking of taking pity on him and stopping. His thrusts get quicker, and it’s almost painful, but Gavin is too mad on that pleasure through pain. He really fucking likes what’s happening.

“Don’t you dare. Look at me,” growls Richard muffedly when he notices Gavin palming himself through the clothes. Gavin has to stop. He has to lift his eyes and meet Richard’s gaze, to know Richard is enjoying the view.

When their hazy eyes meet Richard takes a strong last thrust and comes, holding Gavin, dare he try to pull away. Gavin coughs on reflex and chokes, but swallows anyway, blinking away the tears prickling at the corners of his eyes. Richard lifts him up with a jerk and, a hand inside Gavin’s pants, makes him come with only a few strokes.

Inside his head there’s a ringing emptiness. His legs are shaky and the surroundings are blurry before his eyes. Gavin is shaken — he feels almost as good as he did yesterday. It’s difficult to keep his balance, but Richard helps him to the bed. He tries to help him undress as well, but Gavin just tugs him closer with trembling hands and mutters  _ Fuck it. _

He falls into the saving darkness as soon as Richard lies down next to him.


	9. Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gavin was getting ready for tonight. It would be stupid to deny.
> 
> _You’re thirty six, Gavin. So what, you’re gonna bang a hot dude. Stop acting like a child._
> 
> Easier said than done.

_If there comes a day_

_People posted up at the end of your driveway_

_They’re callin’ for your head and they’re callin’ for your name_

_I’ll bomb down on ‘em, I’m comin’ through_

 

***

 

Gavin woke up alone.

On the wobbly stool next to him was a mug of steaming hot coffee and a simple breakfast of jerky and a single nut bar. Richard was nowhere to be seen.

God damn it.

Gavin covered his eyes with his hand and smiled.

He’s thirty six. He’d seen death and grime, had met with the darkest manifestations of human nature. He’d killed and failed to save. He, it would seem, had long lost any ability to feel emotions so deep, but as he lay there he was _feeling_ to the marrow of his bones nonetheless.

With Phil it was different. With Phil it was convenient. Calm. Stable. All that man was ever to Gavin—a bulwark of stability, and old chair you’d gotten used to and didn’t want to part with.

Gavin could never see Richard as something like that. Richard wasn’t convenient, yet with him everything seemed… right.

The door flew open, letting in the cold and the snow. Richard, cheeks red from the freezing temperatures, entered the room. Gavin almost looked away before the thought struck him that he had every right to do whatever his heart wished. And now it wished to admire.

Richard caught his gaze and smiled, shaking the snowflakes off his hair.

It got even warmer inside the hut.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Gavin sat up on the bed as Richard came closer and, without a thought, leaned down to steal a kiss. His lips were cold and chapped. Gavin grasped at the fabric of his jacket not to let Richard draw away too fast. Richard didn’t seem to be planning to.

They kissed lazily for some time. Richard touched his neck with cold fingers and Gavin shivered, painfully biting down on Richard’s lip and getting a satisfied smile out of him.

“I explored a little,” told him Richard, settling down next to Gavin as Gavin grabbed the mug and took a sip, hoping to clear his mind before it took him places.

“So how’s our interim arrangement for your tastes?”

“Looks good. I doubt we’ll withstood a siege here, but…”

“There aren’t any titans around, I checked.”

Richard smiled. Gavin caught himself easily giving him a smile in return yet again.

“What’s the plan?”

“Are you talking about… getting out of here?”

Gavin frowned. The more he thought about getting back to Detroit, the stronger and larger grew fear that they had no future there. Despite Richard’s reassurement, this anxiety was deep and firm. Maybe _now_ Richard needed Gavin, but there would always be someone better. There was no doubt about that.

All that was left to do was bet how long their _relationship_ would last.

“I was actually talking about tonight and the things you’ve promised me,” Richard’s voice seemed to sound deliberately lower than usual. Gavin felt a hot wave of excitement ripple his insides.

Yeah. He did promise something last night.

“Wouldn’t hurt to discuss that, too, though,” Richard said.

Gavin absentmindedly nodded, taking a bite of the jerky. Everything was too complicated, too dissonant. When Gavin doubted something, he’d always turn to his intuition. And now it was telling him to go with the flow. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to make the anxiety die down, and then met Richard’s eye.

“We got everything we need to fix the radio, we have our exact coordinates. We’ll signal SOS when the polar lights appear next time, and then we’re gonna wait,” Gavin shrugged, putting the mug back on the stool next to the bed. “Maybe someone’s already searching for you. The island’s not that big. A week’s not enough to find a missing person, not to mention we keep moving.”

“In a way, I followed in your footsteps. No one knows where I disappeared to,” said Richard after a beat of thoughtful silence, “but I’m easier to find than you.”

“Is that so,” Gavin rubbed his prickly chin. He definitely should shave. “You never told me what was happening out there. Did this cataclysm reach the rest of Canada? Or only this piece of shit island?”

Gavin vaguely gestured around.

“The official version is that it was a geomagnetic storm, and the part of which that passed here ranked all five on the G-index scale.” Richard straightened his back. “It only touched part of Canada, nearby islands and the coast of Greenland. The damage is minor, so now it is only… being studied.”

“Wait a sec’. Not that I’m an astrophysicist, but don’t geomagnetic storms only happen in space?” Gavin frowned deeper as Richard shrugged in reply.

“Yes, but their effect on the Earth’s magnetosphere isn’t fully studied, so we can’t tell the limit of exposure for certain. Many are remembering the Carrington Event* and are building bunkers right now. Not that it would save them, if those storms render electronics nonfunctional.”

“So what you’re saying is that scientists think this strong-as-all-fuck storm fucked all eletronics, pissed off wild life and… that’s it? But there were more storms after it! You seen them, you were a victim of one!”

Richard nodded in agreement.

“When I was leaving, no one was really talking about it.”

“Fucking politics.”

“Perhaps they simply don’t know.”

Gavin jerked his shoulder.

“My ass, they don’t know. What about the public?”

“Along with the bunkers, people are also building theories.” Richard smiles faintly. “Some are convinced that the change of trajectory of the Earth's quasi-satellites is to blame, some are talking about the government testing a new weapon of some sort, but my favorite is, of course, that the communists are plotting against the US and its allies.”

Gavin smirked against his will, brushing fingers through his hair. The question came up by itself.

“So what’s gonna happen to our saviors if they get into one of those storms?”

“They will die. Or they will survive and start wandering, just like us.”

“You reckon we should warn them?”

Richard looked away. He always did when he needed a moment to think. Or to lie. Gavin managed to learn his tells during the short time they spent together, so he didn’t hurry Richard up as he waited for him to reply.

“I don’t know,” Richard started slowly. It’s apparent it was taking a toll on him to say what he thought was right. They promised not to lie to each though, however, and this was the first step toward trust. “I assume, if we tell them the truth, our chances of survival will be greatly affected. Any pilot would think twice before flying into a geomagnetic storm. Even if there were madmen like Mackenzie that would dive in headfirst to save people, now that people are aware of what’s happening… That would definitely make things harder.”

Richard fell silent, so Gavin continued for him:

“It’s selfish, but we have no other choice.” he nodded. “If we wanna get back home, we should at least try. Also, I noticed that between aurora appearances, well—the storms, there are three days of quiet. So… they should hurry up if they wanna save us.”

Gavin smirked. Richard looked at him… weirdly, before taking his face into his hands and kissing him.

“I’m so glad you understand,” he muttered, breaking the kiss for just a moment. “I’m happy you’re here after all.”

Unsure of what Richard’s last words meant, Gavin swallowed the urge to find out, just letting Richard kiss him and spread warmth through his whole body.

He, too, was happy they were there after all.

 

***

 

The undeniable advantage of their place was the well. The old man, in his time, made sure the water wouldn’t freeze even at the coldest temperatures, and Gavin was immensely thankful for that. He found out when reading one of the old journals that when the cold would come, people would spend weeks melting the snow just to survive. The hunter decided not to make the same mistake.

Richard hadn’t fully recovered from his injury yet, but worked just as hard as Gavin, ignoring Reed’s righteous indignation.

They brought enough water inside and kindled the furnace hotter. Physical work distracted them from gloomy thoughts, and Gavin would’ve easily started chopping wood or cutting animal carcass if it meant not thinking that everything they were doing was just prolonging the inevitable. They had some time before the next aurora borealis, but after that… he didn’t know what would happen after.

Somewhere deep inside him, he hoped that the bits he scavenged at the hydropower plant would simply not fit the ham radio, and then they would have more time with each other. But they did fit. The voice inside Gavin’s head beseeched to lie to Richard, who knew nothing about electronics anyway.

Gavin told the voice to fuck off, but it would be a lie if he said the suggestion wasn’t tempting.

Having changed the circuit boards that were fried during the First Flare, Gavin solemnly turned the switch on. As expected, nothing happened. The ham radio was silent.

“All we have to do is wait,” Richard, who’s been watching Gavin dig around in the radio all this time, concluded as he turned the volume all the way up. “So we hear it even in our sleep.”

“Smart move,” Gavin got up from the chair, putting the tools away—another reason to thank thrifty Jeremiah. Or curse. Depended on how he looked at it. “I’m gonna go check if it’s warm enough to wash ourselves.”

Despair drowned him, diluting the hatred he felt for himself at that moment.

The cold air was sobering. Gavin took a deep breath and tilted his head back, letting lazy snowflakes land on his face. He couldn’t deal with his own feelings and fled. It seemed impossible—to get so attached to somebody in just a week.

But Richard trusted him. Killed for him. Understood and accepted him.

Richard was just himself, and somehow it was enough for Gavin to lose his mind.

He stood for a few minutes outside the hut, waiting for the storm inside him to quiet down. Only then did Gavin walk back inside, having forgotten to do what he came outside for in the first place.

“How do you usually walk back home? It’s freezing outside,” Richard said, looking at the clean clothes Gavin prepared for them to change into. Jeremiah’s clothing didn’t fit Gavin, but seemed just the size for Richard.

“By running,” he smirked. “My recommendation.”

Gavin tried to appear relaxed and calm, but anxiety wasn’t going anywhere. It seemed wrong to feel that way—it annoyed him even more. Even the short clumsy kiss Richard gave him before Gavin went outside didn’t really help.

Gavin was getting ready for tonight. It would be stupid to deny.

_You’re thirty six, Gavin. So what, you’re gonna bang a hot dude. Stop acting like a child._

Easier said than done.

Gavin furiously rubbed his skin with the washcloth. The smell of wet wood and pine needles was calming, as well as the promising kiss from before. Gavin kept coming back to the thought that he’s no longer sixteen and worrying like that was beyond idiotic.

Not a lot of people knew, but proper dickhead Gavin Reed was a spineless wimp when it came to relationships.

The razor in his hand grazed the skin dangerously, leaving a tiny stinging cut on Gavin’s cheek. He sighed, wiping his face with a damp towel. His own face in the foggy mirror appeared… alien. Hard and impossibly tired.

Gavin winked at his reflection and smirked.

That’s better.

Richard noticed him from the doorway and froze in stupor. Gavin caught his heavy gaze and the smirk on his face grew.

“You shaved.”

“You’d make a fine detective with those deduction skills, handsome.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I obviously need to keep an eye on you.”

Maybe some other time Gavin would’ve replied with a barb, but this was Richard, and the tone of his voice suggested Gavin would be violating quite a few rules if he dared. He liked what that promised.

Richard walked closer and put his hands on Gavin’s hips, lips barely touching the sensitive spot behind his ear. Gavin shuddered and grinned, leaning his head to the side slightly. Opening up, submitting. He felt hot, thoughts inside his head muddled and entangled, losing their meaning one by one. Richard’s fingers gently rubbed the sliver of skin above the waistband of his pants, his slow and soft kisses stealing Gavin’s breath.

Gavin didn’t find it in himself to draw away.

“Don’t even think about half-assing it,” Gavin said hoarsely, lifting his chin. Richard tugged him closer, his breath ticklish against Gavin’s neck. “I’m gonna be waiting.”

“Naked?”

Gavin shuddered again. Smirked again.

“Maybe.”

“You better get ready,” a whisper, searing on the skin still burning with kisses left there. “I’ll make it quick.”

Richard pulled away and grabbed the clean clothes. Gavin followed him with his gaze, sighing and ruffling his own hair, smile on his lips. Again.

Echoes of excitement didn’t quiet down. Gavin rearranged the cups on the table, twisted the handles on the ham radio, brushed the dust off an already clean shelf, picked up an unfinished book. There was admittedly nothing to do. Richard’s suggestion kept arising again and again like a fishing bobber on the surface of Gavin’s mind, making it hard to think about something else.

In the end, Gavin gave in and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He put a hand under his head, placing another on his dick. He caressed himself with teasing, almost weightless movements, without a concrete thought on his mind, but all of them undeniably about Richard.

Once simple movements weren’t enough, Gavin sat up and pulled his pants down his legs, gripping his dick tighter. Arousment grew. He wanted more. He closed his eyes and quietly called for Richard, tasting his name. He touched himself quicker, harder. Blood rushed in his ears, and it took him effort not to moan out loud.

All he could think about:

_You better get ready._

The door creaked. Gavin opened his eyes and met gazes with Richard, pointedly smirking and gesturing to himself in invitation.

Richard crossed the room in three big steps and fell on top of him, pressing Gavin against the bed with his body, hot after the bath. Gavin gripped onto his clothing, its future integrity the least of his worries. His fingers trembled.

No more barriers between them.

Richard drew away just enough to pull down his pants and underwear. Gavin struggled out of his t-shirt, and when he finally threw it to the side, he tugged Richard closer. Richard obediently let him, covering Gavin’s mouth with his own.

“Now what’s the plan?” exhaled Gavin once they parted, licking his swollen lips. Richard breathed heavily, danger glinting in his eyes. Tonight he was clearly trying to repeat whatever he did with his tongue yesterday.

“I’m gonna stretch you,” he replied quietly, thoughtful for a moment. The flame in his eyes wasn’t scaring Gavin off, only making his own burn brighter. “You will thoroughly lick my fingers, because we don’t have lube. You’ll take all three. Then, you’ll suck me off, and you will make it good, first of all for yourself.”

“Let’s go,” Gavin agreed, strangled, and opened his mouth before Richard could tell him to. His reward—a gasp.

Richard fucked Gavin’s mouth with his fingers slowly and measuredly, closely watching his face. It felt like being twisted inside out. He wanted more, and harder, and rougher. But he accepted the rules of the game: eyes half lidded, he traced Richard’s index and middle fingers with his tongue, wrapped his lips around them with a pornographic sound. Richard pressed down on his tongue with the pads of his fingers, then pressed them against the side of Gavin’s cheek.

Gavin was almost ready to moan when the fingers disappeared.

“Your legs, Gavin,” quietly ordered Richard, spreading Gavin’s knees apart. Gavin wasn’t the most flexible—he hissed, but let Richard spread him open and put a pillow under his lower back.

Like he was a fucking princess.

Richard’s cold wet finger pressed against his asshole and Gavin jerked on the bed. He hadn’t expected himself to be this sensitive and gripped the covers to hide the tremor in his hands. Arousement burned through the last coherent thought inside his skull. 

Richard was careful, and Gavin was convinced he was getting the treatment only because it was their first time together. He doubted Richard would be as gentle in the future. But it was exactly what Gavin needed.

“You’re so tight, Gavin,” Richard whispered in his ear, pushing through with his index finger. Gavin gulped for air. He so wished he could pierce his ears with something sharp, just so he couldn’t hear the the obscene tone of Richard’s voice. He wished to ask for more. He wished for everything at once. “We’ll have to fix that.”

There was no pain, just an somewhat new sensation of being full. It wasn’t enough. Gavin let out a moan as soon as he felt the second finger push through.

And thrusted his hips down in invitation.

Richard judged his reaction right, now two fingers inside Gavin. Gavin moaned louder—a flash of discomfort and pleasure that followed it. At home, he had a whole collection of different lube kinds and flavors, but it seemed they didn’t need any of them.

Richard’s fingers were nearly dry. He was thrusting them slowly, so slowly—they had all the time in the world. Gavin thrashed on the bed, torn and twisted on the inside, stream of thought nothing but a chant of more, harder, faster.

“I didn’t expect you to be ready so quickly, Gavin,” Richard bit him on the chin. Even through the fogginess in his eyes Gavin saw his sharp smile. He saw the attentive, tenacious look directed straight down, too.

“Are we gonna fuck or chat?” Reed breathed out involuntarily. “Nothing interesting down there, you’re not in fucking Louvre.”

“Oh, but you’re wrong,” Richard drew away and pointedly licked his fingers. Three of them. Gavin froze, not even daring to move his hips. “I’m really liking what I’m seeing.”

Richard kissed him, but all it was a red herring. Two fingers breached Gavin, and when the third pushed inside, Gavin moaned into the kiss in protest and pushed his palm against Richard’s shoulder. For a moment, he was sure three fingers would not fit. Not now. But Richard was stubborn as fuck, with his mindset of a road paver. 

Gavin whined and shuddered, feeling his muscles tense up under the pressure. It was so fucking awful but so fucking good both at once. Richard was right—Gavin could, and almost did come when he felt Richard press his body against his dick. If he hadn’t been stretching himself a few weeks ago, he doubted this would’ve worked. Or, knowing Richard, it just would’ve taken them way longer.

Three fingers moved even slower, stretching the walls of muscle, deliberately barely grazing his prostate.

It felt like it lasted an eternity, or maybe even more, as Gavin ignominiously writhed on the sheets in his attempts to be closer to Richard, as Richard watched him with an unreadable expression on his face, as if his own arousal didn’t bother him one bit.

“Get up.”

His body refused to listen. His legs wobbled in protest as he moved them. Gavin somehow sat up on the bed, feeling no discomfort—only a desire for that fullness back. While Richard was stretching him, he nearly came twice. But the son of a bitch managed to grip the base of his dick before he could both times.

It fucking sucked.

Gavin was in heaven.

He opened up his mouth, gripping the head of Richard’s dick, hot and leaking with precum. He didn’t close his eyes, didn’t lower his gaze, but looked upwards, because he knew Richard would like him like that.

The former measured laziness between them disappeared without a trace. Richard gripped Gavin’s head with both of his hands and pushed his cock deeper down his throat. Gavin wasn’t ready, but yesterday taught him some things. He relaxed his throat, letting Richard reach as deep as he wanted. His own dick was so hard his balls almost hurt.

Everything was over too fast, and Gavin was only getting started.

Richard pushed him back against the bed, towering over him. He hastily spat on his fingers and put them between Gavin’s cheeks.

“You’re gonna take me, Gavin.”

Gavin didn’t argue, having waited for it long enough.

Five days was almost forever, was it not?

Even the kiss they shared couldn’t distract him from the wetness of spit and precum against him. Gavin was almost shaking, but he couldn’t tell if from worry or anticipation. He grasped at what he could reach, left scratches on Richard’s back and bit down on his lip so hard he felt the metallic taste of blood on his tongue.

Richard slightly adjusted the pillow, changing the angle of Gavin’s hips. He pushed through with a single thrust, pressing against the sweet spot inside Gavin at the same time he covered his dick with a hand.

It was more than enough. As if zapped with pleasure, Gavin thrashed on the bed for the last time, and the world before his eyes disappeared as the orgasm hit him. He didn’t hear the gentle whispers, didn’t feel the abrupt and spastic thrusts inside him, or the pain from how hard Richard was gripping his hips.

Tomorrow, he’d feel it. Tomorrow, he’d be counting bruises on his body.

Fuck it all.

Gavin, gaze defocused, looked at Richard. Everything felt like Gavin was watching it from the side: his beautiful flexible body, his parted lips, bitten red, his damp forehead and the hair falling over it. The jerks of his hips. The shudders.

Richard didn’t last long. Gavin almost regretted that he couldn't save a picture of him in his brain, like on his shitty smartphone, and then look at it after… _after._

Richard pulled out and fell on top of Gavin, breathing heavily against his neck. He was shivering all over. Gavin was, too—still.

He was done for. Both of them were done for.

Outside the window, a blizzard picked up. Wind howled and pounded against the glass, slamming the shutters. The wooden walls around them dangerously cried under the storm, but Gavin felt so safe when Richard pressed him closer, hugging him around his middle without a word.

The future didn’t seem so scary anymore.

Right until the moment the ham radio on the windowsill awoke, drowning out the blizzard with the white noise of interference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * The solar storm of 1859 (also known as the Carrington Event) was a powerful geomagnetic storm during solar cycle 10 (1855–1867). A solar coronal mass ejection (CME) hit Earth's magnetosphere and induced the largest geomagnetic storm on record, September 1–2, 1859. The associated "white light flare" in the solar photosphere was observed and recorded by British astronomers Richard C. Carrington and Richard Hodgson. The storm caused strong auroral displays and wrought havoc with telegraph systems.


	10. Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard was silent. Tension rose, and the silence promised storm. Gavin broke out of Richard’s hold and got up from the bed. His intuition screamed bloody murder. Something was not right. Something had happened. Or would happen any second. Richard stared at him in silence, a look of guilt and anxiety on his face.
> 
> Gavin reached for the cigarettes on the table.
> 
> He thought he would be ready for this talk, but he was wrong. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for f-word bomb in one of the sentences before the *** break in case it's triggering to anyone. starts with 'your dad’s lucky'. disclaimer jic i'm a gay man

Gavin’s heart plummeted.

Richard didn’t hesitate to jump off the bed and reach the ham radio. He grabbed it and started tuning the control knobs, trying to find at least one functional wave.

The static was simply a background noise, muffled by his own heartbeat in Gavin’s ears.

No. Too soon. They still had some time.

Gavin didn’t move from his place, watching Richard signaling SOS again and again, listening to him repeat their coordinates as if in slow-motion. He almost didn’t hear his voice among the static. This was supposed to happen, but not so soon, the aurora… it was a long time ago.

Two weeks ago Reed wouldn’t have thought twice to sacrifice an arm of his just to have some kind of connection with the rest of the world. But now he simply stared in front of him, scrambling for a crumb of happiness from the thought that salvation was near.

There was a real chance that their saviors’ airplane would simply crash in another storm, but deep inside Gavin knew he didn’t actually want that to happen. No matter how hard he wished not to lose in Detroit what he found here, he didn’t want to be the reason of someone’s death.

“Affir…mative.”

A voice through the static confirmed his deepest fears: someone heard their call. Someone was going to send help. Soon, Gavin would be lying in his own bed.

By himself.

_Wasn’t this what you wanted this whole time?_

Richard put down the radio and landed a worrying gaze on Gavin. The expression on his face made Richard frown and get up from his seat. Reed simply burrowed himself further into the blankets, avoiding eye contact.

“Gavin, what’s wrong?”

Gavin didn’t have it in him to smile.

It was even harder to control his voice.

Admitting this weakness was as good as death.

“I’m just still, uh, recovering,” he gestured to their bed. Richard’s expression eased up, but something flickered in his gaze, something… hard, something retentive. Painfully familiar. No civilian had that in their eyes. “Like, you know. What a wild night, right?”

 

Richard sat on the bed and tugged him closer, laid his cheek against Gavin’s hair.

“Do you trust me, Gavin?” he suddenly asked.

Gavin froze, heart nervously beating against his ribs.

Reed had been asking himself the same all this time. After Richard lied about Mackenzie, after the trick with the gun. After his own admission. While kissing him, while sleeping next to him in the same bed.

Did he trust Richard?

Undoubtedly.

There was no other way.

“Yes,” he replied after a short pause, feeling Richard next to him relax immediately. “Maybe I’m shooting myself in the leg here, but yeah. I trust you.”

“Thank you.”

Richard’s lips touched the lobe of his ear and the arms around Gavin tightened their hold. Every word, every action spoke of fear of losing Gavin. It was so easy to fool himself like that. To imagine that even for him happily ever after was a real possibility and not just a children’s tale.

“Before we return, I want to tell you something. About me,” Richard pressed his face against Gavin’s shoulder for a moment, as if in search of strength. Gavin tensed. “But first, tell me: how long have you been here?”

“Around two months, plus-minus a week. Why?”

“Gavin…”

Richard was silent. Tension rose, and the silence promised storm. Gavin broke out of Richard’s hold and got up from the bed. His intuition screamed bloody murder. Something was not right. Something had happened. Or would happen any second. Richard stared at him in silence, a look of guilt and anxiety on his face.

Gavin reached for the cigarettes on the table.

He thought he would be ready for this talk, but he was wrong. 

“I’ve always been bad at talking to people,” suddenly started Richard and got up after him, taking the lighter out of Gavin’s hands. “Connor—my brother—has a magical ability to chatter people up and charm them. For me it was always easier to just speak as it is than to butter it up.”

Gavin stayed silent. He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and smoked nervously, flicking the ash off his cigarette into the nearest empty can.

“You’ve been considered dead for three and a half months now.”

“What?”

Gavin blinked slowly and frowned. Richard’s words sounded way too unrealistic—straight out of the script for a popular Netflix drama. He didn’t even realize that Richard was talking to him for a moment. He pulled out a weathered journal that served him both as a diary and a calendar and handed it to Richard.

“I started marking days back at the tourbase. The last few weeks are probably all messed up though, but whatever. What three months?”

Richard shook his head.

“You didn’t touch my backpack, did you?”

Gavin grimaced. He wanted to. But he didn’t.

“No.”

“I discovered it in my first week of wandering by myself, right after the crash. Time flows differently here. The night is longer. You sleep through entire days and don’t even realize it,” Richard put out his own cigarette against the edge of the can and fished four-fold papers in a transparent file out of his backpack from under the table. “This is information on you, Gavin. I’ve been… searching for you.”

The world went off its axis. Realization finally struck him. Gavin had to grip the edge of the table just to keep his balance. It felt like being hit on the head with a heavy blunt object. He wanted to laugh like mad and start yelling at the same time, feeling incredibly conflicted.

The answer to his all questions was here. So close. All he had to do was find those files in Richard’s backpack, and then… What would’ve happened to them?

Gavin bit down on the inside of his cheek not to scream when he unfolded the papers and saw his own FBI record. The full dossier. Where he was seen last. The traced calls. Screenshots of camera recordings that spotted him on the last day.

Gavin James Reed.

DOB: October 7th 1983.

Height: 5’7”

Weight: 174 lbs.

Marital status: is in a long-term unregistered relationship with Philip Walker [status—observation].

Place of work: Detroit Police Department.

Occupation: Detective.

Status: location not established.

Estimated time of disappearance: night of October 27th/28th 2019.

The last piece of the puzzle fell in its rightful place, and the picture was finally complete. There was actually a missing person case on him. It wasn’t fake. Richard wouldn’t do that to him.

“You’re investigating my disappearance!” Gavin lifted his head. “You… you’re one of the FBI bloodhounds, yeah?”

“Special agent of Criminal Investigation Department,” Richard nodded sharply, taking a careful step forward. Gavin didn’t back off, looking straight at him. He didn’t notice he was crumpling the papers in his hands. “In the FBI your disappearance was connected to Huntington’s case. He was close to the head man, but not the man himself, so the network continued to exist even after he was behind bars.”

Gavin opened his mouth to ask how meticulously forensic experts must’ve searched his place in search of evidence, but then remembered he wiped any possible trace of his online purchases and left his old phone at home not to recieve any calls. Who was better at erasing their footprint than a detective with a decade of experience?

“We checked airports and all other alternative ways you could’ve left Detroit through,” nodded Richard, as if reading his mind. “We found your name on the list of departing for Canada, but that wasn’t…” he frowned, “We did not take into account the human factor. It was decided that the gang was trying to sweet up all traces. Nothing signified you were suddenly to leave. Your… partner said you were about to get engaged, so we didn’t doubt you couldn’t have disappeared like that of your own accord.”

Gavin shuddered and looked at Richard.

“You knew that I…”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you say? Why the fuck are you here?” anger choked him up, burning through any leftover self-restraint. “Why didn’t you tell me you were in the search team? The search team for _me._ Why the fuck would you be lying to me this whole time? And I believed you, like a moron. What a fucking sensation—Gavin Reed screwed up. Yet again. Not his first time!”

Gavin threw the papers. Rage painted the world bright red. Fist clenched, he landed a punch on the nearest wall, breaking the skin on his knuckles, but even the pain couldn’t blunt the anger. Richard made an attempt to hug him but Gavin didn’t hesitate to push him away and elbow him in the solar plexus. The blanket fell to the floor.

Richard quietly gasped in pain behind him. Gavin turned around, and anger instantly gave in to panic.

“Give me one reason not to kick you out into the cold without a fucking shirt on,” he growled, stepping closer to make sure he didn’t hurt Richard too bad. Richard straightened out and met his eye.

Guilt. Pain. Fear. Pain. Guilt. And again. Emotions replaced one another like colors in a kaleidoscope.

The lights went out, leaving them in semi-darkness. The storm outside quieted down.

“On December 19th, in Detroit river a black plastic bag containing unidentified human remains was found, along with a… police badge,” Richard took a step closer. “Phillip Walker was called for body identification. He recognized the clothing and the badge to be in Gavin Reed’s possession.”

“But…,” Gavin swallowed, “I left the badge at home. They couldn’t…”

“The examination determined the remains belonged to an unidentified person. In the FBI, we knew it wasn’t you, Gavin,” Richard carefully put his hands on Gavin’s shoulders. “It was an attempt of intimidation. The gang tried to make it seem like your disappearance was their work, and we didn’t try to disprove them. You were declared dead and the search officially over, so we could find Huntington’s people. We tried to play by their rules.”

Gavin smirked. Very FBI of them.

“When formality became reality, and your search was put off to the background, I…” Richard stopped talking, gripping his shoulders. Gavin saw his own emotions twisting Richard’s face, but kept silent. “I was removed from the case. So I took a leave and flew to Canada, to find you. Maybe it was dumb of me, but my intuition told me we missed something. I had to take advantage of my official position, but…”

Gavin burst out laughing. Tension left him drop by drop, surrendering to a pleasant emptiness. 

“Why?” he asked gently, tips of his fingers grazing Richard’s cheek. “Why the fuck would you come here? To die from wolf bites in a blizzard?”

“No, I…”

Gavin knew what Richard was about to say.

He couldn’t let him.

Not like that. Not now.

“This is the most insane shit I ever heard,” he said, letting go of Richard’s cheek and clasping his hands behind Richard’s back. Richard didn’t hesitate to embrace him back. “I should probably tell you you’re off the rails but…”

“You would be right. The longer I was on your case, the more I felt like I’ve known you my whole life. Your behavior and actions in certain circumstances… I understood you, could justify them. I knew I’d do the same. Stupid, I know.”

He fell silent. Closed his eyes. Took a breath, collecting his thoughts.

“Your coworkers spoke well of you.”

Gavin burst out laughing again, unable to help it.

“Seriously? Did I get a badass epitaph?”

“Something like that.”

Reed could feel his nervous smile. He hasn’t fully wrapped his mind around the new information, but despite that he no longer felt like he was carrying an immense weight on his shoulders. It was odd. He was too tired to analyze his feelings.

He just wanted to stay in Richard’s embrace.

Forever.

“Lieutenant Anderson said, and I quote, that you were ‘an absolute bastard, but a bastard that was never indifferent to others’.”

Gavin shut his eyes. Odder and odder. Hearing the people that were a step away from spitting at the ground he walked praising him was strange. Although, he was the one responsible for his image of prime jerk, working on it diligently, minimizing contact with people. So that there was no regret. Not for them, not for him.

“Okay, let’s start over. You’re an FBI agent who was investigating my disappearance. And once the official search was called off, you decided to find me by yourself, and followed my lead to Canada. Am I getting it right?”

“I marvel at your attentiveness.”

“Shut it,” Gavin smiled against his will, recognizing the familiar notes of sarcasm in Richard’s voice. “Beside all that, you claim that this geomagnetic shitstorm fucked with the time here and I have spent three and a half months here instead of the two I thought?”

That part didn’t sound right.

“Not quite,” Richard slid his hand across Gavin’s waist. Gavin subconsciously pressed into the touch, wishing either to protect or be protected. “After the plane crashed, I slept for over a day. I can only assume it’s one of the side effects the storm has on living beings. It causes hibernation, for a day or two, and the cold only contributes to it. So that’s why you lost count of time.”

“This still sounds like bogus, but I’ll bite,” Gavin closed his eyes for a moment. “My fucking head hurts now. Where’s the tequila?”

Richard reluctantly let go of him and started picking up their clothes. Gavin wrapped himself up in the blanket and lit another cigarette. One upon a time in the past, he tried seeing a therapist. He even handled a few sessions. The therapist—a lady around his age—gave him very useful advice once. During those moments when his own feelings seemed a mystery to him, he should come up with three main questions that concerned whatever bothered him, and answer them as frankly as possible.

Was Richard fooling him again? Yes.

Would have Gavin done the same? Probably.

Was he angry at Richard right now? No.

There was just enough tequila for two shots. Gavin took his out of Richard’s hand and gripped the glass, fretting to down it. There was a question on his mind—the most important one.

“What if you couldn’t find me?”

Richard looked at him for a long time, and his gaze told him more than Gavin hoped for. He saw the unspoken fear. The pain. Something else, too. Something too complex to have a name. Something that Gavin couldn’t not share.

“But I did,” simply replied Richard, “nothing else matters.”

Gavin downed his shot. Screw the rules. The liquor burned his throat, blood rushed in his ears. Richard followed him, putting the empty glass on the table and then tugging Gavin to himself.

“That was my last secret,” he said firmly.

Gavin was the one who reached for the kiss.

Everything seemed different now. Gavin himself, Richard, the situation they found themselves in. Fear disappeared, and in its stead came a timid kind of confidence. If this madman went through so much just to find him, their future probably deserved another chance.

“So… an FBI agent, huh?” Gavin drew away and licked his lips. Richard smiled thinly.

“My dad hated cops. The choice was obvious. Though I wanted to outplay Connor,” he replied, “If not for my ambitions, I would’ve become an officer, and things would’ve gone differently.”

“I don’t remember that smart saying about would haves and history, so…” Gavin smirked. “Maybe you wouldn’t have liked me in the field. And vice versa.”

_I would’ve made sure you didn’t._

“Oh, you would’ve hated me, because I’m a bore and a pedant. Not being able to get along with you would have driven me mad. And then we would’ve fought, at some point, and fucked against a table after the shift. To, you know, relieve stress,” Richard winked and Gavin laughed.

Impossible fucking man.

“Or in the car’s backseat, with the dashcam off. Or in the archives. Or in the bathrooms. But only on the second floor. The first is a shithole.”

“I like your thought process.”

“I like it myself.”

Richard caressed Gavin’s jawline with the pad of his thumb and kissed him, hands holding his face carefully. It was a different sort of kiss: slow and tranquil, telling. Telling of things that Gavin wouldn’t dare to speak aloud, that he wasn’t yet ready to hear.

He didn’t resist when Richard tugged him in the direction of the bed. Anxiety gone, now all that was left a fatigue, weighting his body down. Gavin yawned, somehow managing to wrap both of them in the comforter. Richard’s heavy and warm hand on his hip felt right.

Everything felt right.

“How much time do we have?”

“Not sure. They got the signal, now all we have left to do is wait.”

Gavin squeezed his forearm in support.

“We’ll try during the next aurora, if anything. But I’m sure we’ll be saved. In a day or two. You promised to take me to Sam’s.”

“Yeah. Also, my bed is bigger,” Richard weakly gripped his hip.

“Is that an invitation?”

“Precisely.”

“Tell me something,” asked Gavin and yawned again, closing his eyes. Richard absentmindedly caressed the skin around his hip, feeling up all his tiny white scars. “Something else.”

“Me and Connor have been competing who will piss off our father more since school. I dropped football, while Connor joined an LGBT support group. I brought home a guy, Connor went to the police academy. I enrolled in law, and Connor started dating a man twice his age.”

“Your dad’s lucky. Two sons, both faggots,” Gavin grinned sleepily and didn’t even twitch when Richard slapped his ass. “Save that trick for another time.”

“Mm, should I? I’ll try to remember.”

Gavin fell asleep with the feeling of Richard’s lips pressing against his temple.

 

***

 

The next day they spent in suspense. They kept straining their ears, listening to the sound outside, trying to discern if it was an airplane engine they heard. Doing the daily affairs presented to be a challenge on its own—Gavin kept getting distracted, and work just wasn’t going smoothly. He didn’t fear going back to civilization, but the anticipation was killing him.

Richard now would touch him constantly. Their talk erased the before unseen line between them, and yesterday fears crumbled under Richard’s radiating confidence.

They had something solid.

But still. 

_Still._

Evening brought a blizzard, and they both, without a word, agreed it was to blame for the delay. No sane pilot would risk their life in a snowstorm.

No sane pilot, sans for Mackenzie.

On the morning of the third day, Gavin was making rabbit stew with beans, just like during their first dinner together. Richard was sprawled on the chair, lazily flipping through Jeremiah’s journal. The hunter was an interesting character, having chosen the life of a hermit.

Now Gavin had realized he couldn’t do the same.

Richard took a bowl of stew from him, putting it away to instead reach for a kiss. Gavin had to grip the back of the chair to keep his balance when strong arms jerked him by the hips. Smiling into the kiss, he let his fingers comb through Richard’s hair and grasped it at the back of his head.

They had so many nights ahead of them—hundreds and hundreds of them. Not quite as long as Canadian, yet. They had days, too, that they would spend watching football on Gavin’s couch, taking walks through parks, going on stupid dates, on endless conversations and touch, on visiting twelve bars a night and shopping together. They’d dedicate their evenings to slow and gentle sex on a wide bed, to quick and rough—on the backseat of Gavin’s car, to uncomfortable—in the show, to dangerous— in the fitting room of a clothing store. And when evening turns night, they won’t stop there.

They have a long road ahead of them, one they wish—and will—go down holding each other’s hand.

But that would happen later.

Now they could just enjoy the moment.

Until they hear the sound of helicopter blades.


	11. Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During that last night before Richard left, they talked a lot. About their plans, about their future. What they wanted to do next. That they wanted to do it together. Before turning up on the island, Gavin had been planning on staying in Detroit only for as long as it would’ve taken him to get transferred to Chicago and take an exam to become a sergeant. There was no point in that now, without Richard.

_I’m a bad liar, bad liar_

_Now you know, you’re free to go_

***

 

Richard was livid.

He had enough self-restraint to keep up a serene smile in anticipation of yet another idiotic question. Gavin, his complete opposite, didn’t try to hide his irritation and moreso, demonstrated with his entire being his disdain for the happening circus.

They were being interrogated for the third time. Together, now. The separate interrogation seemingly failed to bear desired results—Richard and Gavin kept repeating again and again the same thing: yes, flew to Canada separately; yes, to the island; yes, got caught up in a geomagnetic storm and lost all means of communication; yes, met there accidentally; yes, wandered and plunged, but what else were they supposed to do to survive?

They weren’t charged. Not at the moment, at least. The FBI inquiry to identificate Gavin hasn't had any results yet. Richard had to give up his pride and call Connor, so that he would do something from his side. Their conversation went awkwardly, and was just as irritating as the police interrogation. Connor was indignant, Richard was on defense. In the end, the mere mention of their father (Richard’s trump card) worked like a charm, and Connor stopped nagging and promised to sort things out, without failing to mention a considerable sum that presented to be possible cost.

At any rate, Richard still loved his older brother. His love just festered only when they were at a considerable distance from each other.

“This is bullshit,” Gavin tiredly rubbed his face as he walked out the doors of the police department. “I just wanna go home and for everyone to fuck off. Is that too much to ask?”

Richard sighed and softly gripped his elbow in support. These purely bureaucratic procedures were indeed wearing. 

“Connor is going to keep us updated, your documents should be restored soon. We can enjoy Vancouver in the meantime.”

“Behind the closed doors of a hotel room, hopefully,” Gavin snorted and elbowed his side.

“Oh, yeah.”

Vancouver was noisy—way noisier than Detroit. It was bright and colorful, forcing itself upon you. It felt particularly acute after a week and a half of solitude. Richard never liked the life of a hermit, but now he was thinking more and more about buying a lovely house somewhere in the middle of a forest to hide in from the deafening crowds of tourists with Gavin.

Gavin himself shared those thoughts with him.

Richard took one glance at his grumpy face and smiled. Either way, they were together now, and sometimes it felt like a dream. Richard was afraid of waking up one day and realizing that nothing of it actually happened in real life.

That Gavin was still considered dead.

Richard waffled for a moment before taking Gavin’s hand in his. He shrugged in reply to the puzzled gaze he received, as if to say ‘just wanted to do that’. Gavin smirked and silently squeezed his fingers as they continued walking.

No one paid attention to them, but Richard had a hunch that once in Detroit they’ll become newsmakers for a couple weeks. That meant having a bunch of unwanted people around them. So many people.

Gavin somehow managed to just go with the flow and not think about tomorrow. Richard, however, could not stop overthinking and making plans, trying to take into account every possible outcome of their return. He could get fired. Gavin could not be reinstated in the police department. What would they do then? Would Gavin blame him? Would he turn his back to him, after everything that’s happened? Would he follow him, like Richard followed him?

When they cross the threshold of their hotel room, Gavin tugged him close and kissed him. The anxious thoughts left Richard’s head at that same instant, nothing but ashes left by the heat of the moment.

His feelings swept away everything in their path. Richard was afraid it would spook Gavin, but Gavin didn’t seem to care. The spark that was between them since the very first time they met each other served as proof.

Richard didn’t believe in fātum, in destiny or red strings of fate, but he couldn’t deny that what they had between them felt like it was meant to happen. It had to happen, and it did, just like it was supposed to.

Gavin broke the kiss and pressed his face against Richard’s shoulder, exhaling loudly. Richard felt the tension in his muscles, and it wouldn’t go away even in the silence of their hotel room.

“Let’s dance,” Richard offered quietly, leaning close to Gavin’s ear. Gavin visibly shuddered and gave him an incredulous look.

“It that’s not an euphemism for dirty sex on the nearest surface, I don’t even know what to say,” Gavin grinned. Richard saw right through him, saw the doubt and the surprise. Gavin was still building walls around himself—so many walls—hiding behind them his true emotions. There was no need for that, now.

“Maybe later,” Richard grabbed his phone out of the pocket of his jeans to find the right song. “Come on. We both need to relax.”

“Are you suggesting we dance to Justin Bieber, braid each other’s hair and talk about that one cute guy that laid his eyes on me?”

“I wouldn’t recommend anyone to lay their eyes on you,” Richard replied stolidly, feeling an unreasonable pricking of jealousy. “Come on, Gavin. Dance with me.”

He put his phone on the bedside table and reached for Gavin.

“You’re fucking joking,” Gavin shook his head, but nonetheless came closer. Richard put his hands on his hips and pressed against him. “I’m gonna step on your toes.”

Quiet, smooth music filled the room. Gavin frowned, trying to remember the song.

_Baby this love…_

He burst out laughing.

“Goddamnit, Richard…”

Unperturbed, Richard took the first step, tugging Gavin along into something that only resembled a dance. They slowly circled around the room, and at some point Gavin closed his eyes, letting Richard lead. Richard pressed his cheek against Gavin’s hair and let out a barely audible sigh.

Fleeting embarrassment left his body along with the stress of the day, melting into the music and careful touch.

The world outside their hotel room door stopped existing, and the feeling of eternal serenity Richard sensed when he and Gavin would fall asleep to the sound of a snowstorm outside came back.

He couldn’t see, but he felt Gavin relax in his embrace, no longer attentively listening to the lyrics in search of any specific meaning behind it. Not that Richard was trying to tell him something, but… 

He had to be honest with himself. He was trying to be.

_I love you for infinity_

When the last notes of the song gave in to silence, Richard froze in the middle of the room, pressing Gavin against himself. His heat desperately beat itself against the walls of his ribcage.

He had to say something. Do something, to solidify that moment. He had to confess… 

The string of thought was interrupted by a kiss—Gavin softly pressed his lips against the very edge of Richard’s shirt and, without minding the sudden tension in the air, traced a trail to Richard’s chin. The need for words disappears on its own, like it has all those times in the past.

Richard let Gavin take the initiative, let him kiss like Gavin wanted to kiss. Gavin had an awful habit of hiding his true urges in life, but not in bed. The gentle touch grew impatient, demanding, greedy.

When Gavin pushed him on the bed and sat in his lap, it immediately got harder to string coherent thoughts together. Richard looked up at him and failed to mask a teasing smirk, hands flush against Gavin’s ass.

Gavin let out a spastic breath, Richard’s fingers gripped him tighter. He jerked up and pressed Gavin against the bed with his body.

His self-control evaporated, as if there wasn’t any to begin with, but right then and there Richard could afford letting it go.

 

***

 

Messengers that brought bad news were usually beheaded, but Connor was physically too far for Richard to truly appreciate the delight of said tradition.

An early morning call caught them still in bed. Gavin hid under the pillow with a groan and burrowed deeper into the comforter. All Richard was capable of discerning from his grumbling was something along the lines of ‘go fuck yourself’ and ‘fucking early birds’. Richard had great temptation to follow suit with the attitude, but someone did have to take the call.

The news was unpromising. At the current stage of the investigation, the FBI wasn’t exactly keen on Gavin suddenly turning up alive, but at the same time they couldn’t leave him without any documents and means of existence—they’d have a lawsuit on their hands. Without external interference, the process could take a month, according to the legal procedure.

The same reason prevented them from providing Gavin with temporary documents.

“You should come here and talk to them face-to-face, pressure them,” Connor voiced his concerns. “They’re hiding behind law right now but acting pretty much within their authority. It’s only complicating things that all the talks with Gavin are through Canadian government.”

“Highly doubt that Doxon is afraid of going to court. They must think Gavin will want to be reinstated in DCPD, so they can then offer him aid if he lets them continue the investigation,” sighed Richard and brushed a hand through his hair, side-eyeing Gavin fully cocooned in the comforter.

“Have you talked to any of your guys yet?”

“No, I just know how we do things.”

Connor was quiet. Richard stared at the painting on the wall opposite of the bed with a frown, trying to weigh the pros and cons of their situation. Leaving Gavin was out of question for many reasons. Some of them purely selfish, some of them manifested by all his fears and concerns.

“I’m confident I can sweet talk Doxon to at least provide Gavin with temporary documents, tell him Gavin’s going to hide from his family and friends for the moment. This is the lesser of all evils.”

“That would be the smartest move to make, Richard,” said Connor. There was a comforting softness to his voice—reassurance. “Call me, if anything.”

“Thank you,” breathed out Richard, gripping his phone harder. Their relationship was complicated: rivalry and mutual assistance didn’t exactly go hand-in-hand. But at least there was no fakeness between them. “Just don’t tell your husband anything. Not that I don’t trust Hank, but the fewer people know, the greater the chance administration will cooperate.”

“He left short after Gavin’s case was closed,” quietly told him Connor. “Said he didn’t want to work with Fowler anymore. Things are pretty rough here right now.”

“Unfortunate. More trouble means more attention to this,” Richard hummed. Gavin was no longer trying to fall back asleep and now was listening to the phone call, pretending he was out cold. “In that case, I can threaten Doxon with Gavin talking to the media if they refuse us.”

“That would hurt the investigation. Yeah. You could try that,” agreed Connor. “So, meet you in Detroit?”

“Yes. I’ll take the first flight there tomorrow,” Richard nodded. “Thank you.”

“Thanked me already. You’re welcome, Richard. I’ll meet you in the airport, what if you get lost at the terminals again.”

“I was sixteen! It doesn’t count!”

“Sure does!”

“Moron.”

“Don’t talk back, I’m older than you.”

“Three minutes older.”

“You will never get the invaluable experience of those three minutes, buddy.”

Richard closed his eyes and laughed. They said their goodbyes, and Richard put his phone on the bedside table, tiredly rubbing his face. Gavin got out from under the comforter, visibly tormented by the urge to ask something.

“Hank’s married?” he blurted out, lifting himself on an elbow.

“Not officially,” Richard felt himself smile. Gavin looked sleepy, disheveled and warm. The rough features of his face mellowed out, and even his whitish scars seemed less prominent. “But they’ve been living together for about four years now. Connor’s always liked them older.”

“Holy fuck,” thoughtfully replied Gavin and fell back onto the pillow, stare burrowing into the ceiling. The shadow of anxiety on his face alarmed Richard.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nah, it just feels like the world turned upside down and I’m dangling off of… I dunno,  something, by the tips of my fingers. Unsure what to do. Unsure what’s right and what’s wrong.”

Richard lowered himself on the bed and Gavin turned on his side to face him. His hot breath burned the skin of Richard’s face. Richard was at loss of words, but somehow it didn’t concern him. The silence between them was telling: ‘I’m on your side, I will be here, I understand you’. The touch was even more telling, when Richard put his hand on Gavin’s shoulder and gently caressed it. 

There was hesitation in Gavin’s gaze. He was deciding something for himself, but it was hard to tell what exactly.

“You know, with all this shit that’s been happening to me, I only feel confident that I love you.”

Richard had to take a few moments just to realize what Gavin was saying. Instead of replying, he hastily drew closer and kissed him.

People have been trying to describe the physical feeling of happiness for centuries—in poetry and prose, in art and music. Richard wasn’t on cloud nine, even though his pulse was so quick it must’ve been over a hundred and sixty beats per second. There were no butterflies in his stomach, but warmth spread to the very tips of his fingers. Nothing felt enough—he wanted to be closer, he wanted to touch more, he wanted to kiss for longer. He wanted to dissolve Gavin in himself, and he wanted to dissolve in Gavin.

It was everything he needed.

 

***

 

_Best to keep things in the shallow end_

_‘Cause I never quite learned how to swim_

Drizzle mixed with the snow, turning it into a dirty brownish mess. Richard managed to forget how awful Detroit winter was. On his way from the parking lot to the airport he had to throw the hood of his coat over his head. After Canadian nights spent in a trailer without heating it didn’t even seem like the real cold.

Despite the early hour, the airport was busy. Richard walked past the waiting area right to the needed terminal.

Gavin was finally arriving today.

The whole FBI shebang was a total success. Doxon, as expected, didn’t want to risk the operation—the ravel of bullshit was finally being untangled. The fish they caught was too big to carelessly let it off the hook, it would fuck up years and years of work. But Richard knew well where to press to get what he wanted. He _threatened._ First with a scandal, then with a lawsuit.

_“You wouldn’t dare, Eights.”_

_“Me? No. But you can’t stop him.”_

_“In that case, he will never find a job in Detroit. I’ll make sure of that.”_

_“He’s not planning on working in Detroit, Sir.”_

During that last night before Richard left, they talked a lot. About their plans, about their future. What they wanted to do next. That they wanted to do it together. Before turning up on the island, Gavin had been planning on staying in Detroit only for as long as it would’ve taken him to get transferred to Chicago and take an exam to become a sergeant. There was no point in that now, without Richard.

_“They’re going to fire me anyway. Doxon won’t tolerate blackmail, and that’s precisely what I’m planning.”_

_“Do you wanna leave with me?”_

_“I do. I’ll get a lawyer’s licence and start defending those you’re sending behind bars.”_

_“...Stupid.”_

The court revoked its recognition of Gavin as deceased, and the details of his death were erased from his file. A fly in the ointment was that the FBI was watching their every step—Gavin left Canada with a different name, under the witness protection program.

But none of it mattered. What mattered was that they were finally meeting again.

Two weeks seemed like an eternity. Richard learned to hate his house—too empty, too foreign. He almost hated his coworkers, too, for being so concerned with him suddenly being fired and trying to interfere.

Arrivals were announced. Richard froze in anticipation, clutching his plaid scarf in his hand. Despite having talked before Gavin’s boarding, he was edgy for no reason. Anxiously trying to find the familiar face in the crowd, Richard felt himself growing more nervous with each stranger walking past him.

Gavin was one of the last ones to show up—sleepy, with a ghost of exhaustion on his face, he was typing something on his new phone. A second later Richard’s own vibrated in his pocket. The anxiety of the past few days disappeared. Richard took a step toward, only to hear someone shout behind him:

“Gavin!”

Richard knew who that voice belonged to. Gavin jerked, looking up and stopping in his tracks. A man behind him walked into Gavin and cursed loudly, but Reed didn’t seem to pay him any mind, staring at the person that was running toward him.

Philip embraced him, oblivious to the tension in the air. Gavin awkwardly patted him on the shoulder before letting his arms limply hang by his sides, no intention to hug back.

Richard stopped a few steps away from them, deciding not to interfere at the last second.

It was hard not to. Control used to be everything to him. Control over himself, over his words, over his fate and everything that surrounded him. It was difficult not to get annoyed that Walker was taking his place right now. That nothing was in Richard’s hands.

At the same time, he trusted Gavin. He knew he would make the right decision.

He couldn’t help the rage upon seeing Phillip lean in for a kiss. Gavin pushed a hand against his chest and shook his head. Phillip let go of him.

“Gavin…” 

“I should’ve told you right away. I’m sorry you had to go through so much,” his voice sounded quiet. Guilty. Unsure.

Richard bit the inside of his cheek to keep his emotions in check. It was turning out to be a real challenge today. Avoiding eye contact, Gavin looked at him over Phillip’s shoulder, caught his gaze. For a second Richard saw panic in his eyes.

_“I don’t know how he found me.”_

Phillip noticed him looking and turned around. Richard noted the way he studied him, trying to remember if they’ve met before. The wide eyed look on his face signified realization.

“Is the FBI here for you? Is this related to that case? They told me you’re under witness protection!”

Or maybe not.

Gavin had two choices: to tell the truth, or to lie. Richard saw the hesitation on his face—it was easier to just lie, avoid more heartbreak. He had chosen that path once before. Where had it led him?

Richard bowed his head and gave him a look. Richard understood him without a word and nodded in agreement.

What happened changed them both.

“Not quite,” Gavin sounded so quiet, Richard had to read his lips. “Phil, I’m sorry for not telling you earlier, but…”

“No matter. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you’re here alive. I knew they faked your death. I have my own connections in the FBI, you know? I asked about you. Had to bribe, but… I’ve been waiting for your return. I missed you so much, Gav.”

He reached for a kiss again—Richard clenched his fists. It took him titanic efforts to stay still. Counting to ten didn’t help. He clenched his jaw.

"Stop. No. Phil, I don’t love you.”

Richard forgot how to breathe for a moment. If he was an android, his system would’ve probably been dealing with a critical error and trying to restart.

“What?..”

“I'm sorry. I should’ve told you right away. And explain everything instead of disappearing like a coward.”

“What do you mean?.. You're not under witness protection? What's going on?”

In Philips defense, he immediately lowered his voice not to attract attention. Gavin no longer looked guilty and lost, but Richard was unsure what caused the change.

“Long story. You’re right about some things, my disappearance was connected to that case, but initially... Initially I left because I didn’t want to get engaged to you. You’re a good guy, but I’m...”

Gavin looked at Richard—either for support, or for help.

Phillip understood him right away.

“You're in love with another. With him. Right.”

“No, listen, this is way more complicated than you think it is, I’ll explain when it’s all over.”

“Don’t bother. People warned me you were an asshole, Gavin Reed. Somehow, this is the first time in those three years I actually agree with them. I wish you luck. You don’t have to return the ring.”

Richard took a step toward at the same moment Phillip turned to face him. They met gazes for a moment before silently walking past each other. Richard was hurrying to reach Gavin, Walker—to get away from him.

“Well, that went well,” Gavin said hoarsely, ruffling his hair. “Fucking hate breaking up with people. Feel like both a clown and a dick.”

“Not your first rodeo?”

“Uhuh.”

“It wasn’t... that bad.”

“You’re joking.”

Richard shook his head, not daring to say any more. His fuse short circuited, as if sensing Gavin’s wistfulness. A tiny voice of fear in his mind kept whispering that their feelings for each other weren’t strong enough to help Gavin deal with breaking up with someone who had a history with.

He needed to say something. Do something.

He couldn’t leave it like that.

“I love you,” he blurted out. “Marry me.”

Gavin froze. Richard, too.

Gavin exhaled. Richard stopped breathing.

When Gavin lowered his gaze and grinned, Richard felt his heart skip a beat.

“Okay. But don’t you fucking dare cheap out on the ring, got it?”


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard painted the picture of the next couple of years in advance. It was so fucking proper of him that Gavin felt a surge of tenderness whenever he thought about it.
> 
> Half of Richard’s plans got fucked up by Gavin’s improvisation anyhow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha! you thought i dropped this. you were right, kinda. work got in the way, then school, then life, and then i left the fandom... felt like i had to finish this though. it was, in a way, one of the parting gifts this fandom gave me before i moved onto other things. best parting gift ever tbh  
> i'm so sorry if you've been waiting for me to update you've probably given up on expecting another chapter oiseghdf. i bit off more than i could chew with this, ngl. well. it's done now! i'm glad i had the experience of translating this work, and i'm thankful to the wonderful rainesu for letting me translate it for the english speaking part of the fandom. please give her lots of love this fic was fucking insane
> 
> lmk if there are any typos n stuff i've been looking at my docs for hours now and it's 1am so

July in Chicago was blazing hot.

Gavin stood under the shadow of a giant tree and watched his boyfriend—that he could not to save his soul get used to calling his husband—command the loaders that were moving their numerous boxes inside the apartment allocated to Gavin by the police department. Gavin would’ve never guessed that his tiny Detroit bachelor place ended up housing so many items he was reluctant to leave to the new owners. 

Thoughtfully twisting the wedding ring around his finger so the engraving faced upward, Gavin fished a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one. Their relocation dragged on for almost six months because of Richard’s exams and graduation, but now they could proudly know they weren’t just moving nowhere without a plan B.

All twenty six letters of the English alphabet weren’t enough for Richard’s backup plans. 

The district wasn’t the most presentable, but they saved money on property for until they had enough to buy their own apartment. Richard painted the picture of the next couple of years in advance. It was so fucking proper of him that Gavin felt a surge of tenderness whenever he thought about it.

Half of Richard’s plans got fucked up by Gavin’s improvisation anyhow.

Something furry and warm poked his leg. Gavin looked down and was met with a ragged looking tabby. One of his ears was torn, and across his nose was an old dark scar.

“Well, buddy, this seems like destiny to me.”

The tabby meowed in agreement and stood on his hind legs, clawing into Gavin’s jeans as a plea to be picked up. Gavin grinned.

“What is this?”

“Richard—cat, cat—Richard,” Gavin held the cat more comfortably, while the tabby jovially settled in his arms. “It chose me. Like, you know, in Avatar, or Harry Potter. The wand chooses the wizard, Mister Potter.”

“Does it want to murder you too?”

Gavin burst out laughing. The furry bastard opened an eye and yawned, seemingly unwilling to leave its newfound owner.

“We’ll see. Are they done?”

“Yeah. You wanna let it inside first?”

“Sure, why not. Even I don’t hate that superstition.” 

The apartment was filled to the brim with cardboard boxes. The new furniture that Richard had smartly ordered earlier was wrapped in a transparent film. Some of it was left behind by the previous tenants—like the big, sagging armchair and the ugly vase on the bookcase.

Gavin doubted they accidentally forgot to take it.

He put the cat down and turned to Richard.

“So.”

“Yes.”

“We’re home.”

“Right.”

Gavin lowered his voice with each word. Richard, having instantly sensed the mood, tugged Gavin closer by the belt of his jeans to kiss him.

The kiss deeped, the touch turned bolder. Richard started guiding Gavin in the direction of the couch, while Gavin pulled up the fabric of Richard’s shirt on his back, torn between scratching him and a rough caress.

The film squaked under them, uncomfortably sticking to bare skin, but Gavin found it hard to give a shit. He focused on dealing with the buttons of Richard’s shirt, trying hard not to tear them out.

The sound of broken glass interrupted them.

“Oh shit.”

The Cat—whose name seemed to also be predetermined—managed to jump on the highest shelf of the bookcase and push off that same forgotten vase, sharp fragments of which scattered across the floor.

“Well,” Gavin smirked. “That one’s for good luck.”

“Yeah,” agreed Richard, before kissing him once again. “For good luck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/faggoteen), [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/buttholer)

**Author's Note:**

> [original author's twitter](https://twitter.com/rionnoire), [my twitter](https://twitter.com/faggoteen), [my curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/buttholer)


End file.
